Drone Strike

1

It was, in many ways, a philosophical question.

Was it better to leave some portion of doubt in your enemy’s mind, or did you enhance your position by taking full credit for their turmoil?

Christine Mary Todd had never been a devotee of Sun Tzu, the Chinese philosopher on warfare, who would have counseled doubt. She did, however, know her Machiavelli. The early fifteenth century Italian writer counseled judicious use of both brute force and deception, a philosophy with which she agreed.

Barely an hour had passed since the second lab and its weapons had been destroyed, but already there had been two reports about earthquakes in the region. It would soon be well known that the seismographic signal indicated these were not earthquakes; from there, even the dimmest reporter would connect it to the still unexplained incident a few days ago and declare that something was going on with the Iranian nuclear program.

The only question was what.

Todd feared that the Iranians, realizing their program had been destroyed, might attempt to claim they had tested a bomb, and make some geopolitical hay out of that, perhaps bargaining for a full lift of sanctions in return for “dismantling” the now destroyed program. The calculated yield would indicate that if it was a test, the bomb had not lived up to its potential, but an atom bomb was still an atom bomb.

“My feeling is that we must declare that we did it,” Todd told the others gathered around the conference table in the White House basement. “The question is how many details to give.”

“Tell them,” said the Secretary of State, Alistair Newhaven. “Demonstrate the aircraft. If you don’t go into enough detail, it’s very likely the Iranians will claim that we used nuclear weapons on them.”

“The scientific data will show that the explosions were too small to be our nukes,” answered Blitz, the national security advisor.

“Not the second one,” countered the Secretary of State. “And they might claim that the explosions came from our warheads. Frankly, I’m amazed that the Iranians haven’t said anything yet. We’ve been lucky.”

“They’re too confused. As I predicted,” retorted Blitz. “I’m still against making any statement. It’s an invitation to be attacked. And even the most generic remarks may give away secrets. Why give the enemy information when there’s no need? I say, no announcement at all.”

“We went over this weeks ago,” said Newhaven, frustration creeping into his voice. “They will simply assume it was us in any event. If you were worried about retaliation — a valid fear, I might add — then you should have been against the attack in the first place.”

“Enough,” said Todd. “We will say that we conducted a series of covert operations using technology that was designed to minimize casualties. I believe that’s bland enough to get the job done without going into details. And there will be no details.”

She looked at the Secretary of Defense, whose staff she was certain was just dying to go off the record to polish their boss’s image. He was sure to be one of the candidates to succeed her.

He was as vain as he was indecisive. He would make a particularly lousy President. She had to keep him from that.

“Is that understood?” Todd said pointedly.

“I have an informational question,” said the Secretary of State. “Are our people safe?”

Todd realized that Newhaven was actually asking whether the Iranians might capture the team and use them for their own propaganda purposes.

“I’m told that all efforts to recover them are proceeding,” said Todd, keeping to herself for now the fact that only two were still alive. “Are you arguing that we wait until they are recovered?”

“No, it makes no sense to wait,” said Newhaven. “Not in the scheme of things. I’m just… concerned.”

It was amazing how many platitudes and clichés could be rolled out, Todd thought, when you were trying to justify sacrificing your people.

Fifteen minutes later President Todd entered the Oval Office. A pool camera had been manned after the news and cable networks were alerted that an important announcement was coming from the President. Reporters were waiting in the hallway to witness her statement. They’d been told it would be very brief and she would take no questions afterward.

David Greenwich, her chief of staff, was waiting near her desk.

“Mr. Reid and Ms. Stockard need to have a word,” he said.

“Good. I need to speak to them as well,” she said, sitting. Todd picked up the phone and told the operator to put the call from Whiplash through. “You have an update for me?” she asked.

“We still haven’t been able to contact Captain Mako,” said Breanna Stockard. “He’s moving.”

“I see. And Sergeant Ransom?”

“We have no other information.”

“Are they likely to be captured?” asked Todd.

Reid cut in. “As I said earlier, the odds on any of the team making it out alive are very long.”

“But Captain Mako is definitely alive?” asked Todd.

“He’s definitely moving,” answered Reid. “That’s as much as we can say. We’re reluctant to call him, since we don’t know the circumstances. It may give him away.”

“His capture would not be optimum,” said Todd.

“Absolutely not. We are pursuing our final alternative.”

“I would certainly prefer that he escapes alive,” said the President. There was no need to continue. Todd drew a deep breath. “Let me reiterate — job well done. Both of you.”

“Chris, I assume you’ve decided to announce that we were responsible,” said Reid. Even if he hadn’t used her first name — a severe break in protocol — she would have known from the shift in his tone that he was making a plea based on their long friendship. “I–It would be better for our people if there was no announcement yet.”

“I understand. Unfortunately, if we let the Iranians announce the attack, there will be other repercussions. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Madam President,” said Reid stiffly.

Todd hung up the phone and looked up at David Greenwich, near the door. “Ready?”

“That’s your call, ma’am.”

Todd took the paper with her statement from the folder and looked at it. There hadn’t been time to put it on the teleprompter, but that was just as well — better, she thought, to do this the old fashioned way. It would give things a formal feel.

She reached into her bag and took out her reading glasses. She didn’t actually need them to see the statement, but they were a useful prop.

“You can let them in,” she told Greenwich. Then she leaned back in the seat, folding her hands together in her lap. She gave a smile to the technicians and the press corps as they entered — her “schoolmarm smile,” as her husband put it.

The reporters and technical people came in and began milling around, checking equipment and taking their places. Finally, all was ready.

“The light will come on, and we’ll be live,” said the technical director. He was actually a White House employee who worked for the communications staff. He pulled the headset on, adjusted the microphone, and told the man coordinating the network connections that they were ready to go.

“My fellow Americans, I come to you tonight with important and serious news.” Todd felt the slightest tickle in her throat as she started, but pressed on. “As you are aware by now, Iran has moved forward with its program to develop nuclear weapons, despite sanctions and universal disapproval from the international community.”

Todd paused. She was looking straight into the camera — the statement was brief, and she knew it by heart, not least of all because she had written it herself.

“What you don’t know,” she continued, “is that the Iranian program was much further along than most people have speculated publicly. A few days ago I learned definitively that the Iranians had constructed a small number of devices and were planning to make them operational.”

She paused again. There was no smile on her face now. Her mouth was set, her gaze determined.

“Realizing how grave the situation was, I authorized our military to conduct a measured attack to destroy the bombs in their bunkers. Those operations have now been carried out. I am sure that you will understand if I do not give the exact details of those military operations, but let me assure you, and the world, that we did not ourselves use nuclear weapons in the process.”

Todd took off her glasses.

“The fruits of the Iranian program have been destroyed. Rest assured that we will continue to monitor the Iranian government’s actions, and take whatever corrective or punitive measures are necessary. We have no argument or dispute with the Iranian people themselves, as I hope they will realize from the pinpoint precision and limits of our action. But we will not allow nations to violate international law or go against the wishes for peace by the world at large.”

Todd, face still stern, practically glared into the camera.

“We’re off,” said the director.

As she rose, the press corps began asking questions.

“We’ll have a full statement in an hour at the regular briefing,” she told them. “Until then, I’m afraid I have quite a bit to do, and there will be no further statement from myself or my staff.”

2

Mark Stoner listened to the silence of the machine. It was not like a human silence, nor was it an absolute absence of sound. It was more a very soft hum, filtered through wires and circuit boards.

He heard the same silence in his head sometimes.

“Download is complete,” said the machine. “Awaiting instructions.”

“Proceed with separation sequence as preprogrammed,” said Stoner. “Prepare to launch.”

“Affirmative. Proceeding.”

Six and a half minutes passed. Stoner watched them drain off the counter in his visor. He could tap into any number of different sensors, displaying them on his screen in dozens of preconfigured combinations. But he preferred not to. He preferred the gray blankness of the screen. And so the only thing he saw were numbers, draining slowly in the left-hand corner of his vision.

The computer announced that they were reaching the final launch checkpoint. Stoner had not received an order to abort, and so he told the computer to proceed. He was past the point of no return for this orbit. If he didn’t go, he’d have to wait roughly two hours before being in position again. And there was no sense in that.

One hundred twenty seconds later the computer announced that it was starting the separation countdown, beginning with sixty seconds. Stoner took a long, slow breath when the numbers on the computer reached ten.

Lying facedown in a pod attached to the belly of a hypersonic X-37B, Stoner at that moment was above the Bay of Bengal, moving at several times the speed of sound. His launch capsule was considered highly experimental, and doctors had not cleared it officially for human use due to the high g stresses and temperature variations it subjected its passengers to. Stoner was not immune to these — one could not flaunt the laws of gravity entirely — but his body could deal with stresses well beyond those of the average human. In a sense, he was an athlete’s athlete, though no athlete would have accepted the trade-offs it had taken for his body to reach such a state.

Tucked into the belly of the X-37B, Stoner’s capsule was as lean as its passenger. From the outside, the vehicle looked like a flattened shark, with faceted, stubby wings and no tail surface. From the inside, it looked like a foam blanket, squeezed tight against Stoner’s body and equipment packs.

He was some 2,200 miles from his tentative landing target. It was time to launch.

Three, two, one… Stoner felt a thump, but otherwise had no sensation of falling or even slowing down. Encapsulated in his pod, he was still a satellite moving close to eight times the speed of sound.

The exterior geometry and the coating made the pod difficult to track from the earth, especially in the shadow of its mother ship above. Within seconds the pod had steered itself toward a keyhole in the Iranian radar coverage, taking a course that would avoid the country’s few radars capable of finding high-flying aircraft and missiles. It aimed toward a point the mission planners called Alpha, where the pod ceased being a satellite and turned into a flying rock, plummeting toward the earth.

Stoner didn’t know the specifics about the radars he was avoiding or the maneuvers that the craft would take. To him, Alpha was just a very sharp turn down, one that would press his flesh against his bones. He readied himself for the maneuver, slowing his breathing further, until even a yogi would have been envious. The pure oxygen he breathed tasted sweet, as if his lungs were being bathed in light honey. He saw a white triangle in his mind, a cue that told his body to relax. He had worked hard over the past several months to memorize that cue — relaxing was the hardest thing to learn.

“Ten seconds to Alpha,” said the computer.

Physically, Stoner couldn’t move. In his mind he leaned forward, welcoming the plunge.

The craft tipped and spun sharply. Now he was a bullet, plunging to earth. The gauge monitoring the hull temperature appeared on the information screen as the friction spiked. The temperature was yellow, above the safe area.

“Faster,” he whispered, and pushed his thoughts ahead.

“Leveling,” declared the computer a few seconds later.

The pod became an airplane, extending its stubby wings as far as they would go. It was now over central Iran.

Stoner got ready for the next phase of his flight — leaving the pod.

“Countdown to separation beginning in ten seconds,” said the computer.

Stoner started to exhale. As he pushed the last bit of air from his lungs and contracted his diaphragm, the floor below him swung back. He fell immediately, the capsule maneuvering to increase the force pulling him away.

He pulled his arms tight against his body, falling into a sitting position as he descended into the night. He was still relatively high — sixty thousand feet — and had he not been breathing pure oxygen would have passed out. He saw nothing, just blackness.

“Helmet,” he said in as strong a voice as he could manage.

The visor image snapped to a synthetic blue, then flashed and gave way to a panoramic view of the ground he was falling toward. The optical image was captured by one of the stereoscopic cameras embedded in the shell. A small GPS guidance indicator and an altitude ladder appeared at the right. The numbers said he was falling at a rate of 512 knots, not quite supersonic.

Slower than he had in practice.

The sun was brilliant. The cloud cover looked like a tufted blanket below him.

Stoner tucked his head toward his chest like a diver and rolled forward until he was head first, his legs behind and slightly above him. As he pushed them upward and sharpened the angles of his descent, he slowly spread his arms. The thick webbing that had been folded between them and his chest fanned out. Then he extended his legs, stretching the carbon and titanium webbing between them.

Mark Stoner was now a human parachute. Or, as one of his instructors had once quipped, a breathing brick with stubby wings.

He pushed his body around, aiming to get in the general direction of his target. To avoid the long-range radars, he had dropped south and west of his preferred landing zone. Now he needed to move back north. The course change took some time to accomplish.

His landing zone bordered an area well protected by the radar. His smart helmet had radar receiving circuitry — a “fuzz buster” that could detect and alert him to radar waves. Slightly more sophisticated than the latest circuitry in fighter jets, the miniaturized radar detector indicated the closest radar signal was well off to his right.

Stoner shifted his body. The suit he was using had been pioneered by Danny Freah in the 1990s. Working with Freah on the newer version, he’d received quite a number of tips on how to get the most from the lightweight titanium rods and their small motors. Without them, even Stoner’s overmuscled body would have found the fall exhausting.

The visor display highlighted Istgah-E Kuh Pang, the closest named village to his landing target. It was built along a railroad; the only roads were hard-packed dirt and trails through scrub and rolling desert bordering it.

“Locate target subject,” he told the computer.

The screen flashed, put up a map, then zoomed back. The Whiplash locating system showed his position and that of Turk Mako’s. Turk was sixty-seven miles away, across chalky, uneven hills, and several valleys that passed for fertile in this arid land.

Still roughly where he had been earlier.

This will be easy, Stoner thought.

The edge of a radar coverage area was to his right, barely a mile away. The arc extended forward — Stoner maneuvered left to avoid it.

The computer advised him to lower his speed. He pushed his elbows out, increasing the resistance. He had to begin bleeding off speed now if he was to survive the landing without broken bones. He dipped his left arm gently, banking in the direction of an open valley, then dipped in the opposite direction, lining up toward the town. But there was another radar, and then suddenly the display began flashing — he was being picked up by an aircraft, extremely close, flying in the shadows of the mountains.

Stoner pressed his head down, moving a little faster.

“Visual,” he told the computer.

The hills popped into view.

“Eight times magnification,” he told the computer. Stoner wanted to see details of the terrain he was flying over. “Locate aircraft.”

“Aircraft ten miles south,” said the helmet, calculating from the RWR; it was too far for the infrared viewer to pick it up.

“General course?”

“South by southwest.”

Not something to worry about, he decided, moving his arms out farther to slow his descent.

The suit flapped slightly at his shoulder where it was fitted beneath his backpack, but otherwise it was a snug, tight fit. He felt good, in control through 20,000 feet, though still moving a little faster than he should.

Stoner tilted to his left and pushed his legs out, intending to begin a wide spiral to slow his momentum before dropping into the target area. With every second, he got closer to becoming an ordinary flying human.

He turned through the circuit a second time, his altitude passing through 15,000 feet above ground level. The radar warning detector began to bleep urgently. Red blossoms appeared on his screen.

Tracers.

He stared at them. They were red — Russian-made ammunition, slightly different than the orange typically used by Americans and NATO. They looked like fountains, sputtering and then dying.

They thought he was a plane. A line of red appeared in front of him, a slash in the sky revealing blood.

Now great bursts of red pummeled the thin blue around him. Angry fingers groped toward his body.

He was being fired at. And the bullets were coming from the direction he needed to go through to reach his target.

3

“You idiots! I am an Iranian plane! I need to land! Stop your idiotic shooting.”

Parsa Vahid screamed into the radio as the antiaircraft batteries continued to fire, seemingly in every conceivable direction. A radar installation near Qom had reported an unexplained contact — very likely Vahid or his wingman — and sounded an alarm that caused every gunner in the western half of the country to see if his weapon worked. At least no one was firing missiles.

Yet.

An ominous fist of black and red reached for his aircraft.

“Controller! I need these guns to stop!” Vahid radioed to the Pasdaran controller at the former Manzariyeh air base.

“We are attempting, Captain. Please stand by.”

Vahid couldn’t stand by: he had only a few pounds of fuel left in his tanks. He lined up with the airfield and held on, just ducking under a fresh wave of flak as his wheels touched the ground.

“The gunfire is being extinguished,” said the controller as the plane rolled out.

Too late now, thought Vahid. Let them fire all they want.

He had cut it close — too close. The MiG’s engines sputtered and shut down. Vahid coasted to the apron and onto one of the access ramps. Aiming for the hangar area near the headquarters building, he ran out of momentum just shy of the parking area near the civilian terminal building.

Kayvan, who’d landed some minutes before, ran toward his plane. Vahid got out, tossing his helmet back into the aircraft in disgust.

“We need fuel,” he told the wingman, jumping down. “Where are the fuel trucks?”

“A visitor is on the way.” Kayvan pointed to an SUV driving up from one of the dirt access roads. Two military vehicles were following it at a distance.

“It’s the general,” added Kayvan. “I think we’re in trouble for landing here.”

It took a moment for Vahid to realize the general Kayvan was talking about was the head of the air force, General Shirazi. He had no idea why Shirazi was here rather than in Tehran or Omidiyeh, but he suspected whatever accident of fate had brought him was going to turn out to be a poor one for himself.

“Do we have facilities inside?” he asked Kayvan.

“The Pasdaran haven’t even sent anyone to greet us,” said the lieutenant.

“Great.” He stripped off his survival gear, disgusted, awaiting his fate.

The general’s vehicle came to a stop a few meters from him. The rear window rolled down.

“Captain Vahid,” General Shirazi called from inside. “You’ll ride with me.”

Vahid walked over to the SUV and got in the other side. Kayvan stayed behind.

“What happened?” asked the general. They remained parked.

“I was asked to strike a vehicle that the Pasdaran said had been stolen,” said Vahid. “There were two vehicles, excuse me. One was on a hillside. The other was moving. We destroyed both of them.”

“They admitted the trucks were stolen?”

“They said—”

“Why would they do that? Only to shift suspicion,” said Shirazi, adding his own explanation. “It makes them look bad, so whatever they are hiding is worse. Ten times worse. A traitor. Several traitors.”

The general’s tone made it clear that the subject was not one for debate. He asked Vahid to recount everything that had happened on the sortie, starting with his takeoff. Vahid did so, including even the most mundane details, even his debate over his fuel reserves. The general began humming to himself. Vahid wondered if he was aware of it, but thought it best not to ask. He had never seen or heard of this eccentricity, but stress often brought out odd quirks.

“Enemy troops infiltrated the area,” said the general finally. “That is the only explanation that can be given. Bombers would have been detected and shot down.”

“General, I thought there had been — you said the other day that there had been an accident.”

Shirazi gazed at Vahid as if he were the dumbest student in a class of idiots.

“The official explanation,” said the general finally.

“Yes, General.”

“Do not contradict me.”

“No, General. I personally do not know what happened. My role was to follow orders.”

“Exactly.”

Shirazi was clearly contemplating something; surely it had something to do with how to use the incident to improve his position with the government. But it was not of immediate importance to Vahid — what he had to do was keep his head down.

“Your wingman,” said the general, “can he be trusted?”

“Uh, absolutely.”

Probably not, thought Vahid, but certainly that was not what he should answer.

What would One Eye say to this? The old flight instructor would warn him away from politics — warn him away from all of it.

But if he didn’t toe the general’s line, what would happen to him?

“I am glad to hear that the man is a worthy officer under your command,” said the general. “You will do well as a squadron leader.”

Even though Vahid knew he was being flattered, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride and some anticipation.

“Not today, but soon,” added the general, deflating him a little. “In the meantime, write up what you have told me in a report. It is to come directly to me.”

“Yes, General.”

Shirazi turned his gaze to the window. “A nice air base, don’t you think?”

“Yes, General.”

“We should have it back. Many people feel that way. Getting it back in its rightful place…”

Shirazi trailed off, but Vahid could easily guess what he was thinking: the man who restored Manzariyeh to the air force’s portfolio would not only win unlimited honor from his fellow service members, but would be seen as someone of great power, able to deal with and perhaps even best the Pasdaran.

“I am glad you landed here. An accident perhaps,” added the general, “but a fortunate one. We will do everything we can to continue your operations here — it is very necessary.”

“Yes, General.”

“You may go,” said Shirazi. “We will have trucks and maintainers sent. But remember this — Colonel Khorasani, the man you have dealt with?”

“Yes?”

“Be very careful with him,” warned Shirazi. “If he asks to speak to you, tell him you must speak to me first. Route things through my office. In the meantime, do your report and return to the air as quickly as possible. We need all aircraft to protect Iran.”

“Yes, General.”

“Off with you now. I will send maintainers to you shortly.”

4

Stoner’s first inclination was to simply stay on course. The tracers were exploding below him, and while there was a slight chance of being hit by the shrapnel, he thought it was worth the risk to get as close as possible to Turk Mako and complete his assignment. But when a flourish of shells exploded a half mile ahead, he realized they were exactly at his altitude. With the gunfire spreading before him, Stoner ducked left, just barely avoiding the fusillade that followed.

The sharp maneuver allowed him to change course, but it presented a problem with his stability. He began dropping at an extreme rate, accelerating as he pushed his arms and legs out full. Within seconds his body began to rotate, and he realized he was heading toward a dangerous flat spin, impossible to recover from.

With the cue in his helmet indicating his body was oriented in a level position parallel to the ground, Stoner pulled in his arms, then tucked his head toward his chin, closed his legs and threw them back, trying to pitch into a downhill posture. Once he achieved that, he gradually reopened his arms and legs, remaking himself into a stable airfoil moving in a direction he could control.

Wind raged at his body, upset that it would be used to defy gravity and the natural order of things. Men didn’t fly, and they shouldn’t attempt it. Buffeted up and down, Stoner strained to hold his limbs in position. When he hit 5,000 feet, he banked, this time gently, turning back north.

The gunfire was well off to his right and slightly behind him. According to the GPS, he was forty miles from his target, with little hope of getting there before reaching the ground.

Stoner steered himself farther east, deciding that since he would never reach the target, he would be better off landing in the soft desert plains. He cleared his mind. His forward speed had slowed to about seventy-five knots: still far too fast for a landing, but at least slow enough that he could set up for one.

He continued to coast, heading over a set of rocky crags. The edge of the desert came into view as he skimmed below 2,000 feet. Tucking his chin down, he did a flare to slow himself to landing speed. He quickly lost forward momentum. He flared wider, then tipped his upper body forward. As he did, he released the small chute at the back of his neck. Far too small to hold him, the chute provided enough extra resistance to get him to walking speed as he came through three hundred feet.

There was a rock outcrop directly ahead. Stoner struggled to keep his momentum up. He was a little awkward, not having had enough practice with the rig, and with a good hundred feet between him and the ground he started to fall. He pushed forward, then swung his legs out and did an awkward tumble into a barley field. He managed to curl his body at the last moment, tucking into a roll as he hit.

The blow knocked him semiconscious. He rolled onto his back, disoriented.

What am I doing here? What is my mission?

He knew there must be an answer, but his mind refused to give it. All he could do was stare into the never-ending blackness that enveloped the earth around him.

5

Colonel Khorasani took another walk around the wreckage of the command truck. He needed space to think this through, space and time, but there was little of either.

There was no doubt that the vehicle destroyed on the highway had belonged to the Pasdaran unit, stolen out from under their noses while they twiddled their thumbs aimlessly around the vehicle they found on the hillside. They had proven themselves idiots of the highest degree — typical, Khorasani thought bitterly, of the bumpkins assigned to the Guard in this region. That fact did little to help him.

The company commander had been killed when his vehicle exploded. The battalion commander came to investigate; he was in something close to a catatonic trance by the time Khorasani arrived.

Under other circumstances the commander would have made a useful scapegoat, but he was related to a high-ranking member of the clergy. Khorasani therefore had to worry about saving the battalion commander’s hide as well as his own.

But there were more immediate problems. He needed to find the person who had fired the projectile that blew up the truck. Presumably, they were the same people who had stolen both vehicles.

Were they responsible for the “incidents” at the bunkers? Khorasani doubted it, and yet, what other explanation was there? Would a wild smuggler bound for Iran have been nearly so bold, or effective? It had to be the Mossad. It simply had to be.

But ground troops would never have been able to enter the labs. So what had happened there? Unrelated accidents? Raids by as yet unidentified bombers? In either case, how would the Israelis be explained?

Colonel Khorasani kicked at a clod of dirt. He needed to construct a coherent explanation of what had happened that passed blame away from the Guards — and away from himself. But he also had to figure what really happened. For without knowing that, he might say or do something that would unravel whatever official story he constructed.

The infidel bastards were at the heart of this, certainly. He had to tamp down his hatred — it would make him irrational, and he needed a clear head now more than ever.

“Colonel,” said Sergeant Karim, approaching cautiously, “one of the teams has found something at the edge of the soil mine.”

Khorasani caught the grim look on Sergeant Karim’s face. Karim didn’t speak of it, but scenes of death turned his stomach. His face always blanched a shade or two when they spoke of it, and the colonel thought he must be struggling mightily to suppress the bile now.

“Where?” he asked Karim.

“Follow me, sir. It’s best on foot.”

They walked through the field and up a small incline. The sun was just warming the day, but it was already seventy degrees. It would be over ninety by noon.

He would need to make a full report to the ayatollah by then.

“Maybe they were deserters,” he said aloud. “Panicking and desperate to leave because they caused the accident. Renegade scientists. Traitors. Or fools. Fools are better. Easier to explain.”

“Excuse me?” asked Sergeant Karim.

“Nothing,” said Khorasani.

Karim led him in silence to a cluster of brush. There was a body in the weeds. A man had crawled here, curled up like a baby and died.

“It’s not a member of the Guard unit,” said Sergeant Karim. “I had one of the sergeants look at him.” He gestured to a man smoking a cigarette a short distance away.

“Turn him over so I can see his face,” said Khorasani.

When Karim hesitated, Khorasani did it himself. Looking at the dead didn’t bother him.

Dressed in what looked like Pasdaran fatigues, the man was large and in good shape. He looked more Arabic than Iranian, but he could be an Israeli or an American.

That’s the sort they would choose, wasn’t it? Someone who looked the part.

Khorasani let his mind wander as he looked at the man, thinking of how such an operation would run. You might try infiltrating the bunkers with the help of a few traitors; in that case, what would this man and whoever was with him be doing? Maybe he’d brought material for the attack and was on his way out, or to another target.

Or maybe he was supporting an air attack, directing it with a laser device.

Or maybe he was recording what happened. Their satellites were limited. The Americans were always delivering boasts about their technology that proved to be empty.

The colonel searched the body. The man had no weapon aside from a combat knife, and no ammunition. He had no papers either.

But what was this, taped to his chest?

Money, and quite a lot of it—10 million rial checks, along with 100,000 rial notes.

There were euro notes as well — fifty-three of them, each a hundred euro note.

Khorasani rose. The money would be considerable anywhere, but especially in Iran. It could get him to exile, if he wished.

He handed it to his sergeant.

“Count this,” he told him. “Make sure there is a record.”

Sergeant Karim took it quickly. Apparently, money made it easy to overcome his aversion to death.

How many others had been with this man? Khorasani walked a few meters, examining the area. The ground had been disturbed by the units that responded after the attack, so there was little hope of getting a read on how many there were.

A small handful. Was there another truck?

Which way would they go?

Either they would attack another lab or they would seek to escape.

They would have to wait until nightfall in any event. Traveling during the day was too dangerous — as Khorasani had just proven.

Where to hide? The barren lands nearby were less than ideal, since they could be scouted by air — and would be.

Kaveh Industrial City was twenty-one miles away, due west. There were many buildings there, including several dozen that were abandoned. It would be an ideal place to hide.

Could they reach it on foot?

Too far.

“What’s the town in the distance?” Khorasani asked one of the soldiers standing nearby.

“Istgah-E Kuh Pang.”

“Is it big?”

“No, Colonel. A few buildings. The train runs through.”

“Find your sergeant and tell him I want an immediate report. I will be at my car.” Khorasani walked down the hill to his vehicle, where Sergeant Karim had just finished counting the money. “Find me a map of this place Istgah-E Kuh,” he said. “See what units are in the area. Have them secure it and wait for our arrival.”

“Yes, Colonel. Air General Shirazi wanted to speak to you. He said it was urgent.”

“Urgent.” The word seemed like a spoon of bitter medicine in his throat. Khorasani considered blowing him off, but decided it would be more useful to know exactly what the general was thinking.

“Get him,” he told the aide.

Khorasani braced himself for an argument when the general came on the line, but Shirazi surprised him by apologizing.

“It was wrong of me to hang up on you,” said the general. “We both have the same goal. The pressure, of course, is on both of us.”

“The air force especially,” said Khorasani sharply.

“I have spoken to all of my squadron commanders personally. We have seen no aircraft. The radar data backs this up, as do our allies.”

Allies meant Russia, which had loaned Iran radar technicians some months before. The technicians were low-level people, and not necessarily the most savory characters, Khorasani knew, but they did lend some credence to Shirazi’s contention.

Khorasani, however, was not ready to back down.

“The American planes are stealthy and launch from great distances,” he said. “They could easily have launched this attack.”

“Nonsense. I’ve already seen the damage at Fordow 12. There is no bomb crater — the attack was done from the inside.”

“Doubtful.”

“You’ve already completed your investigation? Of an attack that is less than a few hours old?” said Shirazi.

Khorasani rubbed his cheek. “What is your point, General? Why did you call?”

“My point is that you should be looking for infiltrators and spies,” said Shirazi. “As the air force is.”

“I am doing everything I am supposed to do.”

“You are in pursuit?”

“We are not sure what happened,” said Khorasani, unsure what the general wanted. “We are leaving nothing to chance.”

“I understand several vehicles were stolen from Guard units.”

“And?”

“I have reconnaissance aircraft that could assist in a search. The planes that we have in the area now are needed for defense, in case the Americans do launch an attack. I am proposing that we work together to discover what happened.”

The general explained that he had a squadron of F-4 Phantoms, which were used for reconnaissance. He could transfer them to the area to aid with the search. He didn’t need Khorasani’s help or permission, he added, but if they were working together, they should coordinate their efforts.

Still wary, Khorasani let the general ramble until he came to what seemed to be the point: he wanted to base the reconnaissance planes at Manzariyeh and establish a support unit there.

“The planes could help you search for guerrillas,” said Shirazi.

“The base is under Pasdaran control.”

“And so it would remain. We need only a small place for those planes. And their escorts.”

“Escorts?”

“The planes that assisted you. They were short of fuel.”

“Yes… I would appreciate your help,” continued Khorasani, choosing his words carefully. “The search efforts need to be… discreet.”

“Understandable. And this is my point. If the planes are based at a regular air base, there will be rumors,” continued the general. “If, however, they were at a base near the attacks, such as Manzariyeh, things would be easier to coordinate. We find the true cause of these incidents.”

Shirazi was angling to reopen the air base, obviously, and who knew what else.

But cooperation might be useful, Khorasani thought. For one thing, he could use more air patrols to survey the area.

“I see the logic,” he told the general. “How soon can you arrange the flights?”

“Within a few hours,” Shirazi told him. “I’m sure you will find the pilots cooperative and our alliance fruitful.”

6

“First satellite images are just coming in now, Ray,” Breanna told Rubeo. “A big crater — it looks like a meteor strike. Much deeper than the first site.”

Rubeo tapped the display area of the table, then toggled down to the incoming intelligence report. The preliminary analysis indicated that the designs were not particularly efficient. But how efficient did a nuclear weapon have to be to be considered a success?

The Hydra attack, on the other hand, had been a complete success. They had saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

And yet, the scientist felt uneasy. If the Iranians had come this close, undoubtedly they would try again. They would learn from their mistakes, making their bunkers even more formidable.

The conflict would never be over.

Science could do so much good, and yet be put to so much evil.

“Ray?”

Rubeo glanced up and saw Breanna staring at him, a quizzical look on her face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear,” he said.

“Turk’s satellite phone hasn’t been on since shortly after the attack,” said Breanna, repeating what she had said. “There was an error code that might indicate it malfunctioned or was damaged.”

“Thomas can help you,” he told her. “He’s the expert on the system.”

“Thank you. He’s still alive,” Breanna added hopefully. “He’s moving. Very slowly.”

Rubeo nodded. They had already determined that the sergeant with him, who also had an implant, was dead.

“Do you want to go home and take a nap?” asked Breanna.

“There’s much work to be done, analyzing this and checking our performance,” he said, tapping the display area to close it. “I need to get started on it without delay.”

7

Turk rested against the power line pole, trying to fight off the fatigue that was pushing down his eyelids. The pole rose from a ditch, sheltering him on two sides; he sat in the shadow against a jumble of rocks, willing himself invisible.

The worst thing was the urge to sleep. He knew if he fell asleep, he’d wake up either under arrest or dead, assuming one could be said to wake up in the afterlife.

A small Iranian village sat to his left behind a low hill, barely discernible in the rising haze of heat. In front of him, perhaps twenty feet away, were train tracks. When Turk first spotted them, having walked along the power lines for a short distance, he thought he might hop aboard a passing freight train and escape. It was something he had done often as a teenager, running alongside a boxcar and leaping up the ladder at just the right moment. But after watching awhile, he realized it was hardly a plan at all. He had no idea where the train would go, nor could he expect to remain unseen on it.

And besides, no train seemed to be coming.

He needed a plan, something more than the vague notion that he would escape.

Guns sounded in the distance, firing at random intervals. It was antiaircraft fire, undoubtedly the product of overanxious, nervous minds. The Iranians didn’t realize yet it was too late for all that.

Turk regretted having left Grease for dead. It seemed weak and foolish, a surrender that he shouldn’t have had to make. Logically, he knew he had no choice. Grease would have been too heavy to carry very far, and there was no way he could even have gotten here, let alone go on. But it still felt, it still was, terribly wrong.

Whiplash would be tracking him. They might send someone to rescue him — the SEAL response team or maybe even another Whiplash unit.

But if they had assigned Grease to kill him, would they bother?

Maybe Grease meant he’d been assigned to kill him if they were going to be captured.

Surely that’s what he meant. Turk could understand that. He knew too much about the program, about a lot of things. And the Iranians would torture him to death anyway. Being shot by Grease would have been merciful.

Shoot me, Grease. I deserve it for leaving you behind.

He had the sat phone but dared not use it, afraid that the Iranians would monitor transmissions in the area.

He needed clothes. The ones he was wearing were torn, dirty, and covered with blood. He’d steal clothes, then find a place to hide. Rest. At night he would start walking to the Caspian, or at least in that direction.

Turk had taken Grease’s ruck with him, knowing he’d need some of the gear. It didn’t have much in it besides ammo and first aid equipment. That made sense, but he knew he couldn’t take much with him. He needed to stay as light as possible. As precious as the ammo would be in a fight, it would slow him down too much. Besides, he could never really count on fighting his way out; he wasn’t Grease.

Grease!

The control unit was the real weight. But he couldn’t just leave it. Simply breaking it up wouldn’t do. He’d have to smash it to smithereens.

Who out here would have the faintest notion of what it was?

The sun continued to move up in the early morning sky, robbing Turk of the shadows he thought protected him. He needed another hiding place.

He got to his feet, then struggled with the backpacks before finally hoisting them to his shoulders. He started along the trail beneath the power lines, heading toward a set of low-slung buildings at the edge of the desert, beyond the far end of a village. In the distance he heard noises, vague murmurs of people going about their business.

The trail angled away from the train tracks. He decided to follow it, and as he got closer, realized the low-slung buildings weren’t buildings at all but old ruins, hard-baked by centuries of sun. Still, he approached cautiously, balking at accepting his good luck. But the ruins, a small fort and houses eons old, were completely empty.

An excellent hiding place. He shuffled around until he found a building that was small but mostly intact, except for the nonexistent roof. Constructed of large bricks, its floor was completely covered by sand. Turk took off the rucks. Rifling through Grease’s, he sorted out what he thought he could carry in his clothes: two spare magazines in his pocket, three for the pistol, which he strapped to his waist.

The paper map. The GPS. Grease’s phone, similar to his. And two bottles of water.

He slid the ruck down behind the rocks. It didn’t look like much, and even if it was found, wouldn’t tell anyone anything — ammunition for AK-47s had never been a state secret anywhere in the world.

The control unit was different. He needed a better hiding place for that. Turk took it under his arm and slipped out through one of the windows, treading carefully along the stone walls.

How long ago had the place been abandoned, he wondered. It seemed to go on forever. Most of the ruins were no higher than his knee, but enough of the rest remained to convince him that this was once an important place.

Finding a building where a wall had recently collapsed into a haphazard pile of stones, he moved some of them aside, then carefully placed the control unit beneath them. When he was finished, he rose and memorized the place, promising himself he would come back and recover the unit. Then he continued to explore, working his way in the direction of the railroad tracks. He carried the rifle in one hand, down at his side. He held his left arm out, not so much for balance as a guide, pointing the way he was walking.

The ruins were so extensive that when he entered the yard of a house that was still occupied, he didn’t realize it until he heard noises from the back courtyard: a woman calling to her children.

Turk froze, not sure what to do. The woman was standing behind the wall barely twelve feet away. He could just make out the back of her head.

He was about to back away when he saw something fly up in the air.

Clothes. She was hanging things out to dry.

Turk went down on his haunches. As the woman continued to hang up the wash, she began to hum gently to herself. He waited, turning left and right every so often, making sure he was alone. Finally he heard her moving away, back toward the house, calling again to the children.

He edged to the wall, muffling his breath in his mouth. If someone came, he would kill them.

The woman?

He would have to.

The child?

He couldn’t. Probably not even the woman.

Wasn’t he at war with these people? Hadn’t these people built several nuclear bombs? They wanted to kill thousands, even millions of innocents. Shouldn’t he want to kill every single one of these bastards?

If he had to. He didn’t seek war but now that he was here, now that he saw what they had done, what they had all done, he would kill every single one.

Except the child. And probably not the woman.

Turk leaned over the wall. There was a forest of clothes of different varieties, colors, and shapes. He saw a pair of dark pants and a longish shirt. Men’s clothes. They were hung almost against the wall. He leaned just far enough to take them, and whisked them over to him. The material was damp but not as wet as he expected.

Holding them in his left hand, he backed out, rifle ready, then scrambled as quietly as he could back to his hiding place in the ruins.

8

What am i doing here? What is my mission?

I’m lost. I am an assassin. My job is to kill.

I have killed many. In Romania. In Hungary. In the Czech Republic. In France. In Greece. In the States.

Not the States.

Turk Mako. Locate. Neutralize.

And then?

Return.

Stoner rose to a sitting position, gathering himself and taking stock. His legs and side were bruised but he was all right.

Still wearing the helmet, he took off the suit and rolled it into a ball. From the fanny pack at his belt he removed a small incendiary device and placed it in the middle of the ball. Then he walked over to an irrigation ditch at the edge of the field. There was a trickle of water in the bottom, but that was no matter — he placed the bundle down on some rocks, then pulled the ring on the device. It flared and began to burn.

Stoner unhooked the small ruck on his back and unzipped the rear compartment. Inside was a broken down M-4 with customized parts, including a compact upper assembly and a scope made by L3 EOTech that synched with a targeting system in his helmet. He assembled the gun, then checked his location and that of his subject.

Turk had moved since Stoner had begun his descent. He was in a small village near railroad tracks some twenty-five miles away.

It would take him four hours to run there. Or he could steal a car.

Stoner preferred speed over safety. He began looking for a vehicle. In the meantime, the words describing his mission played over and over in his head:

Turk Mako. Locate. Neutralize.

9

The pants were too short and the shirt a little too wide for Turk, but they were better than what he had. The dampness actually felt good, soothing and cooling his strained and bruised muscles.

As he balled his old clothes up, Turk formulated a tentative plan. It was simple and bare, yet it seemed to take the greatest mental exertion to construct. He would rest here until the sun set. Then he would set out along the railroad tracks, heading north with them as far as he could.

It was some 112 miles in a straight line to the Caspian. Much of that was over mountains — but that was good. Mountains meant cover. They also meant there would be plenty of places to rest.

The most difficult part was a stretch of twenty miles or so through a desert. That would take him at least five hours — a whole night, he thought, for it would be too dangerous to travel during the day.

Turk slid his satellite phone from his pocket. No one had tried to contact him. But that wasn’t unusual. Protocol called for him to contact them, since they couldn’t know whether he was near someone or not.

He raised his finger to unlock the phone, but then stopped, not because he was afraid the Iranians would home in on the signal, but because he was suspicious of Breanna, of Whiplash, Reid, and the others. They’d assigned Grease to kill him. Who knew what they would do now?

Maybe the phone had a bomb.

He stared at it, knowing he was being paranoid. But he couldn’t call. He just couldn’t.

What would he say if he did? Help? Would he cry like a baby? What was the sense of asking them for something they wouldn’t give?

Better to put the phone away and do this on his own. Or die, if that was the option. Because the only one he could really count on was himself, not them, not even Breanna.

He understood Grease now. From the very beginning Grease had tried to maintain distance. He was trying to avoid forming a bond, to make it easier to kill him. But they’d bonded anyway. It was impossible not to, in war.

That was what Grease was trying to say at the end. He thought it was a failing, a fatal weakness.

It doesn’t negate who you were, Grease. You were still a hero.

My hero.

I’m going to get out of here. On my own.

Turk slid over to the corner of the ruined building, leaning against the walls. Without trying to, he fell fast asleep.

He was in Old Girl, pushing the stick around. It was his last mission back at Dreamland, flying with the admiral.

Except it wasn’t. He was lower, treetop level, looking for something.

Trees, not the open terrain of Dreamland.

There was someone with him in the backseat, though he wasn’t sure who.

Grease.

They were doing a recee, looking for the rest of the patrol. He saw the bus, moving along the highway. He pressed his mike to tell Grease.

It didn’t work. He turned his head and could see him staring from the backseat, no helmet on, dressed in the Iranian fatigues they’d worn.

It was a dream, a dream! I am dreaming!

A sense of horror came over him as he stared into Grease’s face.

Grease!

You abandoned me!

But you were going to kill me!

You abandoned me!

Turk jerked his head up, fully awake, back in the cellar of the ruins. Something loud passed overhead.

An airplane. Two airplanes.

He got up and went to the open window at the rear of the building. The planes were nearby.

They were Phantoms, their smoky contrails lingering as they climbed about three-quarters of a mile to the north.

Phantoms?

The sun was still fairly low in the sky — nine o’clock, he calculated. When he looked at his watch, it was 0921. He’d slept for a little under two hours.

The jets took another pass, this one from the north, riding down the railroad tracks. They were Phantoms, all right, not U.S. planes but Iranian, vintage craft held together by duct tape and ingenuity, as the saying went. Turk saw a reconnaissance pod hanging off the nearest plane. It had air-to-air missiles as well, but no bombs. Dressed in a tan, brown, and green camo scheme that reminded Turk of the Vietnam War era, the planes flew south, staying with the tracks for several miles, vanishing in the distance.

He heard them coming back and waited, pressed against the wall in their direction. They passed almost directly overhead and he watched them stride into the distance, then bank into a circling turn. As they came around north of him, he saw their landing gear beginning to deploy.

They were landing.

For a moment he was confused — why land in the sand? Then he realized they must be using the air base where he and Grease had stolen the vehicle the night before.

Turk stared into the haze until the planes were well out of his sight. He slipped back to the corner then, sliding his back against the ancient stones, intending to sleep some more. But he’d no sooner hit the dirt than he heard vehicles nearby.

“Damn,” he muttered, grabbing the assault rifle. “Damn.”

10

Stoner found no vehicle worth taking in the hamlet of a dozen houses near where he had landed, and the only thing with four wheels in the next town was a farm truck so old and rusted he doubted it would last more than a mile. He ran for a while instead, moving through the foothills and skirting the village of Saveh, since he was making decent time and there was no need to risk being seen. He checked on Turk’s location every half hour, using a radio device that tapped into the Iranian cell phone network and from there a Web site where Whiplash was relaying the data. While the Web site could be found and his cell phone intercepted, as a practical matter he was following the theory behind Poe’s famous Purloined Letter—hide in plain sight, and no one will see you.

Some nine miles east of Saveh, Stoner came to the outskirts of another village, this one large enough, he reasoned, to have a good choice of vehicles. It had taken nearly three hours for him to get this far; he reckoned that it would take another two to get to Turk. Taking the vehicle now was insurance against needing one later; getting away from the area after dispatching Turk would be best done quickly.

The place wasn’t particularly large, and with a few key exceptions — one being the lack of pavement on the streets, another the two minarets — it looked like a rural hamlet in the southwestern United States might have looked in the late 1940s. As Stoner got closer, he noticed a curious set of low-slung brown structures near the older houses.

He stopped. Focusing his eyes — his augmented vision let him see about as well as a good pair of field glasses — he examined the huts. At first he thought they were barracks and that the village had been turned into a military town, something not unheard of in Iran. But as he watched, he saw people emerging. After a few minutes of observation, he realized the structures were hovels constructed for the poor by the government, or some local charity. The town was filled with them. Many of their occupants worked at the small factories on either end of the village or tilling the fields that surrounded it.

Stone moved around the outskirts of the village cautiously, staying just beyond the edge of the cultivated fields. His smart helmet was slung over the top of his narrow rucksack; his gun was over his shoulder. The dark green jumpsuit he wore was patterned after clothes Pasdaran mechanics used. If he went into town, he would stash his gear and keep his mouth shut, hoping that between the coveralls and his frown he would look both sufficiently ornery and ordinary to be left alone.

Stoner found a group of fallow fields separated by a narrow, weed-strewn lane. He walked down the lane, trying to see beyond the farms at the village boundaries. There weren’t many people on the streets; most people were either at work or school this early in the morning.

A pair of cars were parked in the courtyard beyond the fields. He walked toward them, considering which of the two would be easier to steal. He had just decided on the car on the left — it looked like a ’70s Fiat knockoff — when he spotted something more enticing leaning against the barn wall: a small motorcycle, twenty years old at least, but with inflated tires and a clean engine.

Stoner walked to the bike. Everything in his manner suggested he was the proper owner. He put on his helmet — rare in Iran, especially in the countryside, but appropriate — then reached to fiddle with the ignition assembly.

He didn’t have to. A pair of wires hung down from the keyed ignition, already used as a makeshift hot wire. He connected them, then launched the kick start.

He kicked the metal spur so hard it stayed down for a moment. The bike caught in a fit of blue smoke and a backfire. He eased it toward the dirt road that separated the fallow and productive fields, gradually picking up speed. He didn’t look back.

The motorbike stoner found was in need of a tune-up; its clutch stuck and the brakes grabbed only on whim. But these were considerations rather than impediments as far as Stoner was concerned. He nursed the vehicle north through a series of low hills, occasionally cutting back to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He’d gotten clean away. No one was following him.

He wasn’t sure he could say the same for Turk. As he approached the village where Turk was hiding — its name according to the GPS map in his smart helmet was Istgah-E Kuh Pang — he saw a pair of troop trucks rushing along the dirt road that paralleled the railroad tracks. Two jets, Phantom F-4s, streaked across the sky so low that it seemed he could have spit on their bellies.

It would be more difficult if the Iranians found him first. But only a little.

Stoner let the little bike putter along at four or five kilometers an hour, easing it over a dirt road that veered eastward away from both the railroad tracks and the village. Old ruins lay dead ahead, their red-tan bricks already growing warm with the morning sun.

Troops were going door-to-door in the village. They’d cordoned it off for a search. But they hadn’t reached the ruins yet.

The motorcycle stalled as Stoner took it up an incline. He coasted to a stop, then pulled out the cell phone to find out where Turk was. He’d just hit the button for the locator app when something whizzed over his head.

He threw himself and the bike to the ground, instinctively knowing he’d been fired on before the actual thought registered in his conscious mind.

11

Colonel Khorasani jerked his head around as the rifle fire began.

“What are they shooting at?” he demanded.

Sergeant Karim, who was no closer to the action than he was, nonetheless answered in his usual authoritative voice. “Someone near the ruins, Colonel. On a motorcycle. They called to him and he didn’t stop. The villagers say he does not live there.”

“I want them alive,” he commanded. “I want them alive so they can be questioned.”

“They may get away, at least temporarily,” said the sergeant. “Would you prefer that?”

The sergeant’s tone was halfway between condescending and informative; Khorasani couldn’t quite decide whether he was being mocked or not. He decided to give the sergeant the benefit of the doubt. They’d had a long night without any sleep.

And now that he thought of it, wouldn’t it be better, and simpler all around, if they just shot the bastards? In that case, the matter would be much more easily settled. He could huddle with his superiors, and then with Shirazi. They would concoct a story that would minimize the damage. There would still be great danger, and undoubtedly more complications, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about someone getting hold of the prisoners and reinterrogating them.

“On second thought, Sergeant, tell them to attack with extreme prejudice and vehemence,” commanded Colonel Khorasani. “The sooner we dispose of these pests, the better.”

Stoner saw the two men who’d fired moving down along the rocks. He could take them easily; the question was what to do next.

Turk was in the ruins due west of him. To get there he would have to get past another group of soldiers coming down a road at the far end of the village.

He could retreat south, then swing back, hoping they didn’t have time to span out along the flank. Some would follow him; those he could ignore. The others between him and his target could be picked off one by one.

Better to move ahead now, while the size of the force was still manageable and the initiative was still in his favor.

Stoner rose and fired two bursts. The men who had shot at him fell. He picked up the bike and pushed it to the left, coasting with the hill until the engine caught. Steering down the dirt road, he angled toward the ruins.

The dirt in front of him began to explode in tiny volcanoes of dust.

More bullets. There were men nearby he hadn’t seen.

Turk pushed against the side of the ruins as the gunfire stoked up. It was coming from the western end of the hamlet, up near the tracks.

They weren’t shooting at him.

Was it Grease?

Grease was dead.

It had to be Grease.

Dread? Curtis? Tiny? Captain Granderson? Gorud?

All dead. He knew they were dead. He’d passed the truck. So it could only be Grease.

A fresh wave of guilt and shame swamped him. He’d abandoned his companion, even though he was still alive.

Turk started through the window, then stopped, catching a glimpse of a vehicle moving from the far end of the ruins, down the dirt road at the eastern edge of the desert. A half-dozen men trotted behind.

There were too many. Too many for one man, and even two.

Too many even for Grease.

Stoner put the M-4 on his hip and fired as he drove, hoping to chase back the men coming down from the village on his left. It worked, but he faced a more difficult problem ahead — a troop vehicle had stopped at the far end of the ruins, and soldiers were using it for cover. From their uniforms, he guessed they were Pasdaran, Revolutionary Guards.

He got off two bursts, taking down three or four, and was aiming a third volley when the bike began slipping out from under him — someone had managed to get a bullet into the tire. He let it go as gracefully as he could manage, putting his weight on his left foot and swinging his right out as the bike hit the dirt. As he started to run, something hit him in the chest, just above his heart.

The slug was stopped by the thin, boron-carbon vest he had under the coveralls. He barely felt it.

Stoner sprinted to the left, running toward a low wall. As he neared it, he rolled on his shoulder, turning and facing the men who had fired at him from above. He saw three men; all of them fell with a tight double-pump on the trigger.

Stoner checked his breathing, slowing it to retain control. He could feel blood vibrating in the vessels at his neck, and knew adrenaline was coursing through his veins. For years he’d been pumped with artificial stimulants, every bit of him altered and manipulated. He’d been the slave of monsters who used him as their weapon, primed him to kill, hired him out as a high-profile assassin.

And now he remembered not the details of that time, the horror of being controlled, but something deeper: excitement. Danger. Life.

He loved it. It was oblivion.

Stoner saw two more men coming from the direction he’d just driven. He aimed and fired, got one, but missed the next, leading him rather than simply squeezing off a bullet into the man’s chest.

It was the sort of error one made in haste. It was emotion-driven, adrenaline-fueled. He would not make it again.

The man had ducked behind a wall. Stoner took a very long, very slow breath, switched the gun to single fire, then waited for the man to rise.

He took him with a shot to the head.

“Infrared,” said Stoner, telling the smart helmet to switch on its infrared sensors. “Count.”

The smart helmet calculated five targets moving along the edges of the ruins behind the men he’d just killed. They were obscured by the terrain, but their heat signatures were visible.

Stoner looked left and then right, gauging the area and its potential for cover.

They’ll expect me to be in the ruins.

If I retreat to the low run of buildings behind me, I can crawl into the weeds on my left. Then I’ll have a clear shot at the group coming up in front of me now.

I’ll get Turk Mako when I’m done. If they don’t find and shoot him first.

Turk realized he was going to die. But rather than scaring him, the knowledge freed him. It told him that he should take out as many Iranians as he could. In that way, he would atone for having left Grease.

He had to be smart about it. Going kamikaze was foolish, and an insult to all Grease and the others had taught him.

Slipping out the window of the ruined building, Turk slithered to the ground like a snake. Automatic rifle fire boomed left and right; it sounded like he was on a firing range.

Move out!

He crouched down, keeping himself as low as possible as he moved along the ancient alley between the ruins. The loose sand and dirt were slippery, and with his weight bent forward, it wasn’t long before he tripped, sprawling forward in the dirt and landing hard on the rifle.

Once, this might have discouraged him, perhaps even sending him into a depressed spiral that he’d never recover from. It would have reminded him that he was a pilot, useless on land, awkward and vulnerable. Now it was only something to work through, even take advantage of: he had become adept on the ground as well as in the air, a true warrior.

Turk crawled along the ground, knowing that in his final moments on earth he was going to kill as many of his enemies as he could. He kept going until he reached an open spot between the walls where he could see the nearby ruins. Something moving on his left. He raised his rifle but before he could aim it was gone. He watched along the top of the old stone wall, saw one, two shapes briefly passing, then nothing as the wall rose a little higher.

Two men, a pair of Iranians trying to get down along the side of the ruins.

Turk started forward, then stopped. It would be better, he realized, to retreat to the remains of the building on his left and a little behind him. Then he could go around and come up on their rear.

He’d have to be fast.

Up, he told himself, and in a moment he was on his feet, running.

Seven targets appeared on Stoner’s screen, IR ghosts that moved across the darker rectangles of the ruins. Lying prone in the dirt amid a few clumps of scrub weeds, he waited until they stopped near the edge of a building that was nearly intact. Switching to burst fire, he moved his rifle left to right, shooting into the scrum until all but one of the men were down. The survivor retreated up one of the alleys, disappearing behind a low run of tumbled-down blocks and stone.

Two or three of the men he’d shot were still alive, trying to crawl to safety. Stoner dispatched them, then changed the magazine and started after the man who’d escaped.

Two vehicles appeared in the distance on his left, both Kavirans. One winked at him — a machine gun was mounted in a turret at the top, Hummer style. Stoner went to a knee, zeroed in on the small area of glowing flesh at the top of the flashes, then fired.

The Iranian fell off the top of the vehicle. The passenger-side door opened. Stoner waited, then took the man as he tried to climb up to the gunner’s spot.

Stoner shot down two more Iranians, one from each truck, before they decided to retreat. Then he shot out the tires on both vehicles. It slowed, but didn’t stop, their retreat. He turned back toward the collection of ruins to follow the man who’d gotten away.

Something moved at the corner of his vision as he neared the closest ruin. He spun and found two Iranians taking aim.

He emptied the mag, dropped the box and pulled up a fresh one. In the half second it took for him to grab the fresh bullets, something turned the corner on his right. Two men, shooting — Stoner threw himself down. But before he hit the ground, the gunfire abruptly ended. Both Iranians keeled forward, blood pouring from their shattered heads.

Behind them stood Turk Mako.

It wasn’t Grease. Turk stared at the figure in the field, the man he’d just saved. He had the faded camo uniform of the Pasdaran Guard, but he was wearing a Whiplash smart helmet.

Grease really, truly, was dead.

“We have to get out of here!” yelled Turk. He pointed left and started to move. “Come on.”

Stoner stood, frozen to the spot. Turk Mako was there, not fifty feet away.

Assassinate.

He raised his gun, then hesitated. Turk had just saved his life; at that range, the Iranians would have had good odds of hitting him somewhere.

A strange emotion took him over: doubt.

What was his job, exactly?

Find and eliminate Turk Mako. He had been sent precisely because he wouldn’t feel.

Stoner hesitated as Turk ran. Killing him was trivial. He raised his weapon.

What was his mission? They wanted him eliminated.

Stoner was a killing machine, turned into something less than human. He hesitated. He had a memory of something else, something deeper.

Turk Mako had just saved his life. He was an American. Turk Mako was on his side.

A man’s heat signature flared in the corner of his screen. Stoner turned, saw that he had ducked behind the wall.

He waited until the man peeked out again, then fired, striking the Iranian in the head.

Assassinate Turk Mako.

Save Turk Mako.

Stoner moved methodically up the row of the ruins, reaching the dirt road that ran along the edge of the city. A dozen buildings sat between the road and the railroad tracks, strung out in a long line between clusters of buildings at either end. The Iranians had moved two large troop trucks near the tracks at the exact center of the road and the city; a half-dozen men were standing in disorganized clumps around the vehicles.

Poor discipline, thought Stoner, switching his weapon to single fire to snipe them, one by one.

Turk reached the slope of one of the first hills overlooking the city before realizing he was alone. He climbed up, some seventy or eighty feet, and looked back in confusion. The Whiplasher was in the center of town, walking near the vehicles parked there, methodically eliminating soldiers.

Turk watched in wonder as the trooper single-handedly took on what had to be a platoon-sized force. The enemy didn’t gang up, and the groups of soldiers east and west at either end of the village remained where they were, but it was still an impressive, almost superhuman show. Even Grease couldn’t have accomplished it.

Was he just lucky? Could he keep it up?

Turk climbed to the rounded peak and surveyed the area behind him. Hills poked out of the desert like measles. There were clumps of vegetation, mostly in the valleys between the hills.

A pair of jets passed to the southeast. He started to duck, afraid they’d been sent as reinforcements, then realized they were in a landing pattern.

The same base as the Phantoms he saw landing earlier, he thought. The base that had been empty.

With the last of the Iranians dead, Stoner considered taking one of the vehicles. But it would be easily spotted, especially from the air; he’d heard aircraft and decided that he would do better, at least in the short term, on foot. So he turned and ran back toward the ruins.

“Map subject,” he told the computer in the smart helmet.

A map appeared in the lower left-hand corner of the visor, showing Turk’s location and his own. Turk Mako was several hundred yards away, on the top of a hill.

Kill him now.

Stoner heard the order in his head, and recognized it as a remnant of the person he’d been — the assassin created as the ultimate weapon, guided by hypnotic suggestion.

He was no longer that person. He was Mark Stoner — not quite the man he’d been before the accident, but more himself than the robot he had become. He decided what he did, not some human programmed with designer drugs.

He would bring Turk Mako back alive.

Turk watched the Whiplash trooper run toward him, moving faster as he approached. He was a big man, thick at the shoulders though not the waist. Dirt and dust trailed behind his feet. He ran like a sprinter, but faster. Turk had never seen a man run that fast, not when he was training with the Delta team, not when he was a high school athlete.

The two remnants of the Guard unit were still back at the village, split in two and separated by nearly two miles. They weren’t moving to pursue. Perhaps they didn’t even know what had happened.

Turk let his rifle slide down by his side as the man came closer. He was starting to feel tired again, starting to feel the aches in his muscles.

The man ran up the hill, his rifle pointed directly at him. Turk felt his throat tighten; his heart clutched, contracting with a long beat.

What was this?

The man stopped, gun still pointing at him. “Captain Mako?”

“Yes.”

“Stoner. Let’s go.”

Stoner turned to head north.

“Wait,” said Turk. “Not that way.”

The trooper turned back.

“I have an idea,” said Turk. “I think I know how we can get out of Iran quickly.”

12

Captain Vahid watched the two F-4 phantoms set down on the closer of Manzariyeh’s two runways, then bump along the access ramps and head for the apron adjacent to the terminal building. The uneven concrete pavement was one of several signs of neglect only visible up close. With Qom closed to foreign pilgrims and the air force evicted, the Pasdaran troops quartered here had little incentive to keep the place in top shape. They didn’t even keep the name: known to the air force as Manzariyeh, the few men they had met here on the ground used the civilian “Kushke Nosrat” and stared blankly when he’d said “Manzariyeh.”

“More planes,” said Kayvan. “But no maintainers.”

“Yes.”

“They can’t expect us to fly without fuel.”

“It’s supposedly on its way.” More than a little of Vahid’s frustration slipped into his voice. They’d been here for hours, told to stand by and join the Phantoms on reconnaissance but given no support — not even a place to sleep.

The Pasdaran were ignorant animals and idiots.

“I wonder what we did to deserve this punishment,” added Kayvan. “Escorting old ladies.”

“It’s not punishment,” said Vahid. “It’s an honor.”

“An honor, flying with Phantoms? What are we protecting them from? The scientists’ own errors blew up their labs.”

Vahid whirled. “Shut your mouth,” he told the lieutenant. “Just shut it.”

“Why? You know the Americans didn’t send bombers. We would have seen them. Even the B-2s aren’t invisible.”

“Shut your mouth, Lieutenant. Keep your criminal thoughts to yourself.”

“Don’t worry, Captain. I won’t hurt your chances for promotion.”

Vahid just barely kept himself from decking the man.

“I’m going inside to see if I can find something to eat,” he told Kayvan. “Stay with the planes.”

“But—”

“Stay with the planes, Lieutenant, if you know what’s good for you.”

Where the hell was their fuel?

13

Colonel Khorasani couldn’t understand what the major was telling him.

“Half of your company?” said Khorasani. “Half your company is dead?”

“Twenty men,” admitted the major. “But the enemy has not escaped. They are still in the ruins. Hiding.”

“How many?”

“Two dozen at least. Maybe more.”

The major described how his unit had surrounded the village, then been ambushed from the site of the ancient city at the edge of the desert. By the time the major finished, the enemy force had increased twofold.

Khorasani was split between disbelief and awe. How had such a large force managed to get inside Iran, let alone avoid notice over the past two days? Even allowing for some exaggeration — the major, whose shirttail was askew, was clearly not the most competent officer in the Pasdaran — the enemy force must be considerable. By the time Khorasani arrived, the enemy force had retreated, though there was still some scattered automatic rifle fire near the ruins.

One or two enemy soldiers — even a dozen — might be dealt with. But there would be no explaining away something this size.

On the other hand, the regular army was responsible for dealing with conventional enemy forces. They would be the ones to blame.

“I’ve called for reinforcements,” continued the major. “We should have more forces soon.”

“Send more people south,” said Khorasani, “so they can’t escape from the ruins.”

“I have sent two squads into the hills. I will send more when I have them. They won’t escape.”

“Good.”

“I was wondering, Colonel — should I call the army for reinforcements? The air force has flown over a few times, but they do not yet—”

“The army is not to be involved,” snapped Khorasani. “Our forces only. Keep me informed.”

The colonel’s shoulders drooped as he walked back to his command car. There was very little he would be able to do to shield the Guard from some blame, at least.

They had to neutralize the enemy force, kill all its members. That was the first priority. After that he would construct the story of what had happened.

No matter how creative he got, there would be serious repercussions. The Pasdaran could well end up decimated.

As for his own career, that clearly was ruined. Whether he could save his life or not remained to be seen.

14

Stoner listened to Turk describe his plan to get to the airport and take a truck, the words triggering a cascade of images in his mind. Half were specifically related to the mission — he recalled the map of the area, the airport layout, and the general disposition of the forces, all of which had been briefed.

Half of the rest had nothing to do with the mission, and were neither benign nor comforting. He saw explosions, cars and buildings, a head bursting as a bullet hit, a vehicle veering straight into a bridge abutment.

He had no idea where they came from. There was no caption material, no explicit connection or explanation, no context, just seemingly random images interfering with the matter at hand.

The pilot’s plan made some sense — they would go to a lightly held base and steal a vehicle. The base was some eleven miles away.

Two hours. Less if he ran flat out, which he would.

Stoner looked back at the village. He couldn’t see everything that was going on, but he heard more vehicles arriving, and guessed that the Iranians were reorganizing. They would try to surround the area next. They would concentrate on the north, since it was easiest to travel in that direction. Going east meant crossing the desert hills. It was also the direction of the air base, which the Iranians would assume was an unlikely destination for the men they pursued, since it was their own stronghold.

Turk’s plan was their best bet, definitely.

“Let’s do it,” said Stoner, starting to run.

Stoner’s quick acquiescence took Turk by surprise. He hesitated a moment, then started to run after him. By the time he was halfway down the hill, Stoner was some ten yards ahead. The distance between them increased rapidly, until finally Turk had to yell to the other man to stop.

“Hey!” he yelled. “I can’t keep up. Hey!”

Stoner turned and stopped, waiting for him. Exhausted from the sprint, Turk slowed to a trot; by the time he reached Stoner he was walking.

“You have to move faster,” Stoner told him. His voice and affect were so flat that under other circumstance, they might have been comical.

“I’m sorry.”

“Here. Give me your gun.”

Turk hesitated. “But—”

“Give me your gun and get on my back.”

“On your back?”

“I will carry you. Let’s move. Come on.”

“I’m keeping my gun,” said Turk, still unsure this was going to work. But he decided it was silly to resist, and so when Stoner turned around, he climbed on, piggyback style. Stoner began running, slowly at first but quickly gathering speed. Turk guessed he was going as fast as he had been before, maybe even faster.

They ran like that for nearly forty minutes, Stoner keeping the same pace over the rocks as he did over level paths. Turk knew of Stoner’s rescue by Danny and the others; he’d heard a small amount of his history. But he hadn’t spent any time with him, and he’d thought, quite frankly, that some of the tales of his prowess and strength were exaggerations. Clearly they weren’t. He was amazed at the man’s strength and endurance, which not only was superior to his own but far exceeded even that of the Special Forces soldiers he’d been with.

They stopped to rest and scout their position on the eastern side of a hillock, in a bend in a trail. The base was four and a half miles away; Turk could make out the concrete expanse of the runways in the distance.

He’d told Stoner they would steal a truck at the base, not a plane. He was afraid Stoner would think taking a plane was too wild, too crazy. To a person who didn’t fly, it probably was. But the more Turk considered it, the better the odds seemed.

“They don’t man the perimeter,” said Stoner, gazing in the direction of the base.

“They didn’t the other night, but there are posts and—”

“No one is in them.”

“You can see that far?”

“Yes.”

“What are you, Superman?”

Stoner stepped back, glaring at him.

“I didn’t mean that as an insult,” said Turk. “I’m just amazed you can see that far. And hell, you’re — strong.”

“There were operations. There are downsides and costs.”

“Yeah?”

Turk waited, but Stoner didn’t explain.

“I don’t think they’re following us,” Turk said finally.

“They will.” Stoner turned back in the direction of the base. He pointed. “If we go north and then follow the pipeline, they won’t see us, even if they do man the closest lookout. There is more cover farther east, along the main line. We can move behind it, then around into the facility from the north. It is in our interest to move as quickly as possible,” he added. “Get on my back.”

An hour and a half later Turk and Stoner crawled on their hands and knees behind the scar of the pipeline, moving to an access road on the north side of the base. The nearest observation post was five hundred yards to the west, and it would be difficult for anyone to see them as long as they stayed low to the ground.

Even crawling, Stoner was fast. Turk followed as quickly as he could but still fell behind. The piles of dirt were of different heights, jagged both at the top and the sides, and Turk found himself wending around them like a caterpillar. Losing sight of Stoner, he resisted the temptation to stand, continuing in the dirt until his stolen pants were worn through at the knees. Finally he twisted around a fat mound of sand and found Stoner studying the fence and the facility beyond.

They were near the point where he and Grease had gone in before. A truck was parked about twenty yards up the road, facing the eastern end of the base and away from them.

“Sorry it took me so long,” said Turk, scrambling up behind Stoner.

“Mmmm.”

Stoner stared at the truck. It seemed to Turk that he was gauging whether to take it. Turk turned his gaze toward the rest of the base, scanning the runways. He’d been right about the aircraft he’d seen earlier; they had landed here.

A chime sounded — a wristwatch alarm on Stoner’s arm. The Whiplash operative reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small cardboard container about the size and shape of the matchboxes that bars and restaurants once gave away. He slipped it open and dumped the contents into his mouth.

“What are you doing?” asked Turk.

“Meds.”

“What kind?”

“All kinds.”

“Is that alarm to remind you?” Turk pointed at the watch.

“Every day. Sometimes more.”

“What’s in them?”

“Different things.” Stoner shrugged. “It’s how I live.” He pointed at the truck he’d been watching. “We can get it from the back. We’ll break through the fence there and keep going.”

He started to rise.

“Wait,” Turk told him, grabbing his arm. “You see over there? The planes? They’re F-4 Phantoms. They’re being fueled on the apron, at the end of the north field.”

“Yes?”

“They’re two-seaters. We could take one. It’s farther than the truck, but if we go straight across the field here, we can get there before anyone sees us.”

“There is someone with binoculars on the building,” said Stoner. “They’ll see us.”

“We’ll be at the planes by the time they send someone to get us,” said Turk. “Look, they’re being refueled. We can fly out. We’ll take one right to Kuwait. It’s what? Forty minutes, max. We’ll be home free.”

“You can fly it?”

“I can fly anything.”

“What about those?” Stoner pointed to a pair of MiGs parked on a second apron closer to the buildings.

“They’re better planes, but they’re one-seaters,” Turk said. “So unless you can fly, too, we want one of the Phantoms.”

“We will have to run across open land,” said Stoner. “It will take time.”

“Me, yes. Not you.”

“Go!” was Stoner’s answer, jumping up and dashing toward the planes.

The first of the pills was just starting to take effect as Stoner began to run. He could feel the stitch in his side melt. The dark blanket that had begun to descend on his head evaporated. The pills counteracted some of the remaining poisons in his body, but also replaced the hormones he could no longer manufacture. Most important, the drugs supplied part of the boost his organs had been trained to need.

No one had ever asked what was in them before. Stoner himself didn’t know.

Four men were near the planes. One was overseeing a fuel hose by the wing of the lead plane. Another was back by the fuel truck. The last two were loading something beneath the plane — a bomb, Stoner assumed.

There were other men and vehicles back near the hangars, half a mile away, working on the MiGs.

If something went wrong, he would blow up the tanker truck, then go and get the security vehicle sitting back by the terminal. Most likely they would come to him, responding as soon as they saw the attack.

Stoner felt his energy increasing with every step. He ran as fast as he had ever run, the wind whipping past his helmet.

The man near the tanker truck spotted him and raised his hand to warn the others. Stoner brought his gun up, zeroed on the cue in the visor and fired. As the man fell, Stoner turned the barrel toward the man under the wing with the fuel hose and shot him from two hundred yards; the man dropped the hose and took a step back. Then he staggered forward, falling facedown onto the cement.

Fuel squirted out for a moment, then stopped, shut off by the safety device at the nozzle.

The two men who’d been working on the bomb took off on a dead run in the direction of the MiGs. Stoner changed direction to follow. He could feel his legs get stronger, the muscles thickening with each step. Hate filled his head. He wanted to kill these men, crush them like ants, pound each skull against the tarmac. Hatred and anger built exponentially. He felt his head warming, his heart racing.

Why was he so angry?

Anger was an excess emotion, something that clouded his vision and his judgment. He could not be angry.

And yet he was, beyond all measure.

Turk’s lungs felt like they would collapse by the time he reached the first runway; by the second, his legs were cramping. He willed himself forward in a delirium of broken energy but desperate and wild hope.

Do it! Go!

Stoner was far ahead, running after the two men who had retreated from the Phantom. Turk started to follow but realized Stoner would catch them long before he caught up to Stoner; he was better off going to the planes.

The scent of jet fuel nearly overwhelmed him as he ran onto the apron. When he got to the first Phantom, he saw why — some of the bullets that had killed the man closest to the tanker had punctuated the tank as well. Two narrow streams of fuel spurted from the truck, crisscrossing as they dropped toward the pavement. The fuel ran in a large puddle toward the second plane. He turned to the first, which was the one being prepped when they attacked.

Go, Turk told himself. Get the plane started and go.

How had anger become a physical thing? How had it become so overwhelming?

Stoner saw himself grabbing the nearest man by the back of his mechanic’s coveralls and dashing him to the ground. He saw the blood bursting from his skull, the front of the man’s leg turning ninety degrees forward. Stoner floated above his body and saw himself grab the second man, throwing him to the ground and then kicking him, pounding him to unconsciousness with two blows from his foot.

The hatred was irrational. The hatred felt incredibly good. It felt familiar. He had felt it many times before.

That was the man they had made him, the angry man. That was the purpose of the experiments and additions to his body, the manipulation. Create the perfect assassin. Create the angry man.

That was not who he was now. Zen and Danny had rescued him. He was no longer the angry man. Drugs or not, he was Mark Stoner.

He stopped kicking the Iranian and turned to go back to the planes.

When he was about two hundred yards away, something told him to stop and turn. He spun and saw an Iranian Hummer moving out from the terminal building. Dropping to a knee, he took aim at the windshield of the vehicle. He fired a three-shot burst into the driver’s head. The vehicle slowed to a stop.

More men were coming, these on foot, running from a building on the left. Fighting back the rising anger, Stoner calmly flicked the gun’s shooting selector and began picking them off as they ran, firing center mass on each Revolutionary Guard, taking down four of the five.

The last man, seeing his friends go down, threw himself on his face. Stoner got to his feet and fired a single bullet, striking the cowering man on the top of his skull.

It didn’t make him feel better to have killed the man.

Progress, he thought.

As he turned toward the Phantoms, Stoner saw the jet fuel leaking from the truck. He headed straight for the truck, splashing the last few yards to the cab. The vehicle’s engine was still running; he put it into gear and drove to the edge of the ramp connecting it with the rest of the airport’s ramp network. He hopped out of the truck and ran to the stream of jet fuel spitting out of the side.

Reaching to the lower pocket on the leg of his pants, he took out a plastic bag with a lighter and kindling. He lit the bag and tossed it toward the stream of fuel. Before he could back away, the stream exploded into a fireball that consumed the tanker.

Worried that the leaking fuel truck would catch fire, Turk had taken the plane up the apron before bothering to start the Phantom’s second engine. When he was a safe distance away, he stopped and glanced back for Stoner.

A wall of fire erupted on his left, blocking off the plane from the rest of the airport. It was so hot that he felt a sudden rush of heat.

He was going to die.

“Stoner!” he yelled. “Stoner!”

Turk pushed up in the seat, leaning over the side to look for the other man.

Leave! he told himself. Go! Go!

He was sent to kill you. He’ll kill you still — that’s what he’s doing. Go!

Turk looked at the terminal building. There was a truck there, but no movement. He craned his head, looking at the burning fuel truck.

Where was Stoner?

“Stoner!” he yelled again.

“Here,” shouted the other man, clambering up the wing on the right side of the plane, away from the fire. “Let’s go.”

“Yeah. OK.” Turk blinked; Stoner really was Superman.

“Strap yourself in,” Turk yelled. “We don’t have oxygen. Just hang on and we’ll be home.”

Without oxygen hookups or pressurized suits Turk would have to keep the plane low, or risk decompression sickness.

“OK,” said Stoner, dropping into the seat.

Turk engaged the other engine, starting it and then ramping to full power. The Iranian F-4 was a lot like Old Girl, but it wasn’t exactly the same; he had to stop and think about what he was doing. First and foremost, the instrument panel was very different — Old Girl had been modernized several times, and now featured a full glass cockpit close to state-of-the-art. This Iranian plane was all dials and knobs. The stick and throttle looked a little different as well, though in function they were fully equivalent.

Turk let off his brakes and eased the Phantom into a turn up the ramp, picking up speed gently as he lined up to start the takeoff.

Damned if the runway didn’t look short.

Very, very short.

Too late to worry about that now. Too late to worry about a lot of things.

Turk jammed his hand on the throttle, making sure the engines were pushed to the max. They rumbled behind him, coughing for a half second on some impurity in the fuel, then shaking it off. They whined with a high-pitched, distinctive scream as the Phantom raced down the long bumpy stretch of concrete.

The plane wanted to fly. Her wings flexed with the wind, sinews stretching. The base and desert swept by in a blur.

And then they were airborne, the Phantom rising like a bird, a thundering, anxious bird, but a strong one nonetheless, knifing into an onrush of wind.

15

As soon as Vahid heard the gunfire, he ran from the lounge of the terminal where he’d been drinking tea, passing through the long hallway to the outside parking area. His first thought was that the Pasdaran Guards had had enough of his wingman and decided to shoot him.

Then he saw the fire.

“What the hell is going on?” yelled Vahid as two men came at him on a dead run. One was bleeding from the head. Vahid reached to stop him but the man charged past, blood streaming from his temple to his neck and from there to his shirt. He’d been hit by a fragment of some kind; if he would stop to stanch the bleeding, he would be all right, but in his panic he was going to bleed to death.

One of the Phantoms rose off the runway.

How? He’d left the F-4 pilots inside, waiting for a fresh pot to boil.

Vahid started for his own plane. If they were under attack, he had to get in the air.

Where was Lieutenant Kayvan?

Two figures were crouched near the rear of his MiG. One was one of the maintainers who’d arrived a short while before. The other was his wingman.

“The planes!” yelled Vahid, starting toward them. “Kayvan! We’re taking off. We’re taking off!”

16

Turk steadied the Phantom as he cleaned the landing gear, coming off the runway a bit slower than Old Girl would have. He had more weight and weaker engines: two 500-pound bombs were strapped under his wings, and a pair of old model Sidewinders on the outer rails. But on the positive side, the plane was loaded with more than enough fuel to make Kuwait.

The first thing he needed to do was jettison the bombs. As he banked westward, he checked the armament panel — old school but easily operated. He reached to the switch to select the weapons so they could be jettisoned. Then he remembered the control unit, still hidden in the ruins near the village.

Why not drop the bombs there?

Colonel Khorasani stared at Sergeant Karim as he ran down the hill from the control car.

“Colonel, one of the teams searching the old ruins found a computer in the rocks,” said the sergeant between gasps for air. “Electronics. Computers.”

“Where?” demanded Khorasani.

“Platoon two,” said Karim. He pointed to the left side of the ruins. “It would be in that direction.”

“Go back and tell the commander to meet me,” said Khorasani. “I’ll walk.”

He let his binoculars fall to his chest and began walking down the embankment. The reinforcements were still fanning out around the area, moving in slow motion. For all the braggadocio of its lower ranks, and all the connections of its leaders, the Revolutionary Guard was at its heart a disorganized bunch of rabble one step removed from the streets.

Khorasani was truly baffled about what had happened. While the carnage he’d seen indicated a large, efficient force, anything above squad size would have shown itself by now. Were the Americans or the Israelis fielding invisible soldiers now?

He would figure it all out later. For now, they must be destroyed.

The squad commander was a sergeant, an older man, fortunately. They were the only ones worth a whit in the Guard. The man raised his hand to salute.

“Where are the items that were found?” Khorasani asked.

A jet passed overhead, drowning out the man’s answer. The sergeant glanced upward, but Khorasani ignored it — it was about time the air force got involved.

Another problem.

“The computer?” he asked as the jet banked away.

“We found it in that house below,” said the sergeant, pointing. “It was under some rocks. We left it in case the positioning was significant.”

On the other hand, the older ones knew nothing about computers.

“Let’s have a look,” the colonel said, starting for the ruins.

The Phantom’s ground-attack radar was worked from the rear seat, and there was no chance of getting Stoner to activate it without a lengthy explanation. But Turk figured he could do a dead-reckoning drop — point the nose and let ’em go.

He took a practice run first, getting the feel of the plane and his target. It wasn’t as easy as he thought. He realized as he cleared that he would have overshot by quite a bit, and that was before gravity pelted him in the face and chest. He’d have to come in slower and wait even longer.

The soldiers on the ground would undoubtedly realize something was up. Next pass and go.

As he circled to take a second run, Turk tried to remember the last time he had done a dead-reckoning dive on a target. He couldn’t remember doing it ever, though he was sure he must have practiced at some point. In fact, the only situation he could think of that was even remotely close involved a video game when he was thirteen or fourteen.

At least he’d been good at that.

Turk steadied his aim as he lined up, using the nearby house for reference and trying to calculate where momentum would put the bombs.

Five hundred pound bombs. All I have to do is be close.

He pickled and pulled off. The plane jerked upward, glad to be free of the extra weight.

Not like in a video game, that.

The Phantom continued over the city, passing the railroad tracks and the open desert to the west of Istgah-E Kuh Pang. More Pasdaran vehicles had arrived, and there were pools of men gathering at the center of town. Turk banked south, pushing the Phantom over the area where he had bombed.

Black smoke and pulverized brown rock lingered in the air. The corner of the building had been replaced by a double crater. There were bodies on the ground.

Mission complete. Time to go home.

17

Vahid started the MiG rolling. The smoke from the fire made it impossible to see much of the airport in front of him, let alone where the attackers were. He guessed that they must be near the runway, but decided he would have to take his chances and try rushing by them. Staying on the ground would surely cost him his MiG.

The fire blocked the normal access to the runway. Instead, Vahid turned his plane along the narrow road in front of the terminal building. Meant to be used by cars, it was lined by light poles. Seeing the MiG’s wing coming close on the left side, he pulled one wheel off the cement, riding cock-eyed all the way to the service access road before turning onto the ramp that led to the middle of the runway. Gaining speed as he went, Vahid turned right, trundled to the end and pulled a U-turn on the uneven and ill-repaired concrete apron before lining up to take off.

The F-4 near the fuel truck spit a fireball across the field. Flames licked across the wings and up the tail, small curlicues feasting on the paint.

Vahid heard One Eye shouting at him: Go!

He hit his throttle and rocketed down the white expanse, lifting into the morning air. Worried that whoever had attacked the planes on the ground had shoulder-launched missiles, he let off flare decoys, jerking the nose of the MiG upward, pushing the plane for all she was worth.

He started to breathe easier as he climbed through 5,000 feet. No longer worried about shoulder-launched missiles, he began a climbing orbit around the airfield, rising as he spun around looking for whoever had attacked the base. He didn’t have much to attack them with — besides his cannon, there were a pair of radar missiles and another pair of heat-seeking missiles on his wings — but he’d at least be able to give their location to the units on the ground.

Assuming the ground answered. Vahid had taken off in such a rush that he hadn’t even contacted the tower. He tried doing so now, only to belatedly realize he had inadvertently knocked the radio off when climbing into the cockpit.

One Eye would never have let him live that down. Vahid hit the switch and heard the controller practically screaming into his ear, demanding he respond.

“Shahin One acknowledges,” he told the man. “I’m off the field and looking for the attackers.”

“Be advised — someone has stolen Badr Two.”

“Repeat?”

“Badr Two took off without authorization.”

“Who took it?”

“Unknown. The pilots are on the ground. It may have been one of the Israelis!”

“Impossible,” said Vahid. He turned out of the climb and circled toward the control tower, certain that the enemy forces had taken it over.

“Captain Vahid, are you receiving? This is Major Morad.”

Morad was the leader of the Phantom squadron; they’d been joking over tea just a few minutes before.

“Major, where are you?” asked Vahid. “What’s going on with the control tower?”

“Captain, I’m in the tower. I’m on the ground. We’re all on the ground. One of my aircraft has been taken. Pursue it.”

“I have it heading north,” answered Vahid. “What are my instructions?”

“We’re getting in contact with General Shirazi.”

“Are you sure this isn’t one of your pilots?”

“They are all here. It must be a commando, stealing our secrets.”

That is very doubtful, Vahid thought.

“I am setting up an intercept,” he told the major. “Stand by.”

18

Turk pulled the harness against his shoulder, tightened it as far as it would go against his shirt. He felt naked, and in a sense he was — no pressurized suit, no survival gear, not even a “hat.” While the Phantom’s cockpit was pressurized, he knew he had to be careful not only about his altitude but his maneuvers — a sharp turn might knock him unconscious, perhaps permanently.

If he had to stay low and level, his better course out of the country would be north — get up and out through the Caspian, where the air defenses were far weaker. It was a little farther, but it was in the direction of the units that were supporting the SEALs. It also might seem counterintuitive to the Iranians; they’d expect him to go toward Kuwait.

Level at 5,000 feet, he turned north and moved the thrusters to max, winding the J-79-GE17 turbojets up like tops ready for a good spin. The Iranian Phantom gobbled fuel; Turk could practically see the needles dive toward empty. He backed off his thrust, deciding that 350 knots was a decent speed, a compromise that would conserve fuel while making good time. At roughly six miles a minute, it would get him to the coast before the Iranians could scramble their northern fighters. Once there, he could goose the afterburners for a few seconds and ride the wave to Baku in Azerbaijan.

There was one last problem: he had no way to use the radio. Breanna and the others were undoubtedly tracking him; he assumed—hoped—they would alert the authorities there as he approached. Landing itself would not be a problem. The runway had been built for Soviet military use and was more than long enough to get in comfortably.

He thought of using the sat phone. That might work.

Not now — he had too much to do and worry about in the unfamiliar plane at low altitude. He’d wait until they were over the water and out of Iranian territory. There was nothing they could do at the moment anyway.

Fifteen minutes to the coast, by his watch.

Turk rocked back and forth in the cramped cockpit, checking his gauges, studying the instrument panel. The main controls for the Phantom’s radar were in the rear compartment, and while he had made sure the unit was on before taking off, he now had no way of doing much more than that. Against the Iranian air force, the Phantom’s early X Band radar would still be a perfectly acceptable tool, but he had almost no control over it beyond the ability to lock a single target at relatively close range. The Pulse Doppler mode that had been preset was useful, allowing the pilot to “see” targets ahead as long as he could interpret the old-style screen. Targets moving “on beam” or at the side in the direction of the plane were essentially invisible, a problem if he was pursued from either flank. But the radar was fine for what he wanted; it would help him avoid problems. If he saw contacts ahead, he’d go around them.

For now, the sky was clear. Fourteen minutes to the coast. They were going to make it.

Vahid could see the F-4 flying ahead five miles. If it was being flown by an enemy, he wasn’t being too obvious about it. He was relatively low, at 5,000 feet, and going only about 350 knots: not slow, exactly, but hardly running away.

He was going north, in the general direction of the Tehran air base where the Phantom wing was ordinarily assigned, which was a puzzle. It seemed more logical to Vahid that the pilot should be heading toward a safe haven.

But Major Morad was adamant that the plane had been stolen. He hadn’t radioed back with additional directions; apparently he was still waiting on General Shirazi.

Vahid closed the distance to the F-4 slowly, aiming to draw in tight to the plane’s left wing. The Phantom, meanwhile, made no move to avoid him.

It also didn’t answer on the assigned radio frequency, or even the rescue band used for emergencies. That was suspicious, though not enough to shoot the plane down.

Vahid drew to about thirty meters of the Phantom, matching his speed as he pulled parallel to the aircraft. He could see two men in the cockpit. They didn’t seem to have helmets.

The man in the rear looked at him. Vahid waved and pointed, motioning that they must follow him.

The view out of the cockpit was so restricted and Turk was so focused on what was in front of him that he didn’t even notice the MiG on his wing until it was practically touching.

When he did see it, his shudder shook the plane.

He drew a deep breath, trying to plot what to do.

Ignore it.

He held steady, deciding that if he acted nonchalant, the pilot would break off and leave him alone.

Unfortunately, that was pure fantasy, as the MiG soon demonstrated with a swoop over his front quarters. The other plane passed so close that the missiles on its undercarriage nearly hit Turk’s right wing.

Two of those missiles looked like radar homers, Russian R-27 Alamos. The others were heat-seekers, early Sidewinders, from the looks of them. Any one of them could turn the Phantom into a dead hunk of tin in an instant.

Turk waited until the plane reformed on his left wing, then waved to the pilot, signaling that he didn’t have a headset.

I’ll stall for time, he decided. I’ll get close enough to the coast to make a dash for it.

But the MiG pilot wasn’t having that. He signaled adamantly that Turk had to follow him, pointing with his finger to the ground and gesturing violently.

“OK, OK,” said Turk, feigning compliance as he gestured with his hands. “Where do you want me to go?”

The pilot moved his hand left. Turk pretended not to understand.

Turk thought he might catch the MiG by surprise if he went to his afterburners. If he did that, he might be able to get enough of a lead to outrun it, at least to the border. But there was no way that he could outrun the radar missiles, which had a seventy kilometer range.

The pilot in the Phantom seemed somewhat out of sorts, gesturing wildly, willing to comply but keeping his plane on the course it had been flying. Vahid guessed that the man was one of the mechanics who’d been working on the plane when it was attacked; he didn’t have a helmet, and while he was doing a good job of keeping the airplane straight, he didn’t seem capable of turning or even going very fast.

Major Morad’s claim that the plane had been stolen seemed ridiculous. Even in Iran, the Phantoms were obsolete. Undoubtedly this was a story the squadron commander was concocting to cover up whatever was really going on.

Life in Iran was becoming unbearable.

Vahid radioed for instructions. Neither Morad nor the controller answered. Having the Phantom follow him back to the base they had just taken off from seemed like a foolish move if it was still under attack — a reasonable guess, given Morad’s radio silence.

Vahid pushed the MiG slightly ahead, easing in front of the older plane by thirty or forty meters.

“Follow me,” he said over the emergency radio frequency, even though the pilot didn’t seem able to reply. “Take a turn slowly and gently — bank. Use your stick.”

There was no answer from the plane. Instead, Morad radioed him, finally answering his earlier calls.

“I have spoken to one of the general’s aides. We need you to switch to Western combat control.” The major added the frequency and the name of the controller, a colonel whose name sounded like arrr as the transmission broke up. Vahid tried to puzzle out the name but couldn’t work it against his memory, nor did the voice sound familiar after he found the frequency.

The colonel, though, seemed to know him, and immediately asked if he had the Phantom in sight.

“I have it on my wing,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at it. “The pilot appears to be a novice. I think he is one of the maintainers who panicked when the base was under attack. He can fly straight, but otherwise—”

“You are to proceed to Tabriz air base,” said the colonel, cutting him off. “We are scrambling fighters to meet you.”

The airfield, located outside the city of the same name, was the headquarters for Tactical Squadrons 21, 22, and 23. But it was some 370 kilometers to the east; Tehran would have been much more convenient.

“I’m not sure how much fuel he has,” radioed Vahid. “Nor do I think he can maneuver. I don’t think he’s much of a pilot. From the looks of him, he’s a maintainer who panicked to try to save the plane.”

“You have your orders, Captain. We will have escorts in the air within ten minutes.”

“Roger.”

“If the plane does not comply, you are authorized to shoot it down.”

“Destroy it?”

“Affirmative. Attempt to do so over open land. But that should not be your deciding factor. Take it down at all costs if it doesn’t comply.”

Turk waited until he saw the pilot gesturing for him to follow. The man seemed almost desperate, moving his hands vigorously.

He needed to wait until the last possible moment. It was a contest of time now; time and distance.

The odds were not in his favor. But when had they ever been?

Turk rode the Phantom steady, watching the indicated airspeed carefully. He felt a little light-headed, but was sure that had nothing to do with the plane — they were at 4,000 feet now, and even if the cabin were wide-open he ought to be able to breathe normally. So it was nerves, a problem he could handle. He slowed his breathing, relaxing his muscles as best he could. He leaned gently on the stick, nudging the Phantom so it seemed like he was turning in the direction the MiG wanted.

His other hand settled onto the ganged throttle, waiting.

The MiG pilot saw him moving and began his bank, aiming to lead him wherever it was he wanted to go. Turk started into the turn very slowly, then, as the MiG started to pull ahead, he killed his throttle, practically stalling the Phantom. The MiG floated into the middle of his windscreen. Turk hit the trigger, spitting a burst of 20mm rounds out from the plane’s centerline.

The stream of fire missed, but he hadn’t counted on knocking her down. What he did want was what happened: the MiG pilot, seeing tracers blaze by his windscreen, rolled out of the way. By the time he recovered, Turk had the Phantom’s afterburners screaming. The F-4 jumped through the sound barrier, surging northward and moving as fast as she had gone in years.

Vahid’s instincts took over as the tracers flew past. He ducked and rolled, spinning away from his enemy. Even though he calculated that he was too close for a successful missile shot from the Phantom, he let off flares, then jerked the MiG hard to the west. Right side up, he expected to see the F-4 pulling in front of him, caught outside of the tight turn as it moved in for the kill.

He couldn’t spot it. He practically spun his head off his neck, making sure the Phantom wasn’t on his six somewhere he couldn’t see. What the hell?

The other plane was way out in front, moving north at a high rate of speed. Vahid armed his air-to-air R-27s, got a strong tone in his helmet indicating he was locked, and fired both. Only after the second missile was away did he radio the controller to tell him what was going on.

Turk expected the MiG would fire its radar missiles almost immediately. Under most circumstances in a modern American plane, that wouldn’t be a problem: the weapons would be easily fended off by the ECMs.

In the Phantom, things were a little different. He had to rely on his guile.

He pushed lower to the ground, still picking up speed. The plane was equipped with a radar warning receiver, which ordinarily would tell the crew when it was being tracked by a radar. But the receiver hadn’t worked earlier, when the MiG was coming up from behind, and it remained clean now, either malfunctioning or not activated correctly.

Turk assumed there was a problem with the RWR and decided to ignore it. He saw the encounter in his head, playing it over as if it were one of the scrimmages he routinely did with his UAVs. He saw the Iranian pilot recover, then launch the first missile. He’d look back at the radar, check for another strong lock, then fire again.

Or maybe he would wait and see what the first missile did. But that wasn’t going to work now.

He counted to three, then pushed the stick hard and rolled into an invert, turning at the same time to beam the Doppler radar in the MiG and confuse the missile. He drove the Phantom lower, pushing so close to the ground that the scraggly brush threatened to reach up and grab the plane as it passed. A small city lay ahead; Turk went even lower, coming in over the rooftops. He kept counting to himself, knowing that the missile was behind him somewhere, and hoping it would run out of fuel.

The R-27 had a semiactive radar; it rode to its target on a beam provided by the MiG’s radar. Turk’s maneuvers had confused the radar momentarily, and his very low altitude made it hard for the enemy radar to sort him out of the ground clutter.

He saw a canyon coming up and decided to turn with it, hoping the close sides would shield him from the guiding radar. But the Phantom was now moving well over the speed of sound, and she wasn’t about to turn easily or quickly. Worse, he felt a punch in his stomach as he tried to turn — the g forces were quick to build up. He had to ease back, and gave up his plan. Instead he stayed as low as he could over the open terrain, running toward the buildings ahead.

Sweat poured from every pore of his body, including the sides of his eyes; he could barely keep his hand on the stick.

Seconds passed, then a full minute. He let off on the gas and banked, more gently this time, aiming north.

Something shot in front of him, maybe a mile away. It was one of the missiles.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Then he felt the tail of the Phantom lifting out of his hand, pitching his nose sideways.

The other missile had exploded behind him.

19

Breanna watched as the signal indicating Turk’s position jerked back northward.

“What the hell is he doing?” Reid asked.

“I don’t know. Assuming he’s in a plane, they may be ducking a missile.” They could only guess what was going on; there’d been no word from Turk, or Stoner for that matter. It was clear from the intercepted Iranian radio transmissions that the Iranians had not captured them. The Iranian air force was scrambling after a Phantom that had left Manzariyeh without authorization; Breanna guessed that must be Turk, trying to fly to safety.

“Try to contact Stoner again,” Reid told the communications aide. “Get him.”

“Sir, I just tried. There’s been no answer.”

“Try again.”

“He’s heading north,” said Breanna. “I bet he’s going to Baku.”

“Can he make it?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at the screen. The maneuvers indicated he was under attack. Off the top of her head she wasn’t sure what the Phantom’s range might be, and there was no way of knowing how much fuel it had. “We need to talk to the Azerbaijan air force,” she told Reid. “He’s going north — he’ll be heading toward their air space.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. They have MiGs — can we scramble them?”

“I don’t know if that will be doable, Breanna.”

“Try.”

20

Vahid cursed himself. He’d fired too soon, sure that the F-4 pilot wasn’t much of a flier. Now he saw that was a mistake; the man was smarter than he’d thought, and at least knew the basics of dodging radar missiles.

No matter. He’d drive up close and put a heat-seeker in his fantail.

Once he found him. The radar was having trouble locating the Phantom in the ground clutter.

Maybe he crashed after all.

No. There he was — twenty kilometers away. Running north toward the Caspian.

Vahid juiced his throttle, opening the gates on the afterburners. The sudden burst of speed slammed him back into his seat.

He’d close on the F-4, get tight, then fire. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Stoner sat in the rear seat of the aircraft, watching with detachment as the plane bucked and turned, jerking sharply in the sky.

They weren’t particularly high. He could see the ground clearly out the side of the windscreen.

If we crash, he thought, Turk Mako will die, and my mission will be accomplished.

Turk struggled with the controls, trying to muscle the Phantom back level after the shock of the missile explosion behind them. If he’d been higher, he could have simply sorted things out in a long, sweeping dive, but he was far too low for that. He pulled the stick, straining as the plane skidded in the air. His airspeed had bled off precipitously; the Phantom was very close to a stall.

Get me out of here, Old Girl, he thought. Let’s dance.

He pressed again on the throttle and jerked the stick back. He was dangerously close to one of the Phantom’s peculiarities — the aircraft had a tendency to fall into a spin when the stick was muscled too hard at a high angle of attack. But the F-4 wasn’t ready to call it a day; she managed to keep herself in the air and moving forward despite the pilot’s nightmares. There was damage to the tail — he could feel the rudder lagging — but the old iron hung together.

The plane began gaining altitude. There was no question now of doing anything fancy; he would have to get away, straight line, balls out.

Water, then find the coast.

One thing he had going for him — the MiG pilot probably thought he’d splashed him with the missiles.

There were mountains ahead. Turk nudged the F-4 skyward, aiming to skim over them so close he’d chip paint.

Vahid’s radar found the Phantom ahead to the east, roughly a hundred kilometers from the Caspian if it kept on its present heading. He was over the Elburz Mountains and using them to good effect, tucking well below the peaks and hoping the irregular topography would make it hard to track him.

He was right, but Vahid realized he didn’t have to stick too closely to his prey. It seemed obvious that the pilot was going north to the Caspian. He would simply beat him there.

Other fighters were scrambling now. The radio was alive with traffic and orders: shoot the enemy down.

Vahid blocked everything out, concentrating on his plane and the pursuit. The Phantom was fast, but his MiG was faster. He was also higher. He titled his nose back and climbed some more, planning how he would take the Phantom in their final encounter.

The mountains seemed endless. Turk had backed off the throttle, worried about his fuel supply, but he was still moving at over 650 knots, yet there seemed no end to the damn things. They were green, greener than anything he’d seen in Iran. The sun glowed overhead, the sky clear. He imagined there were vacationers somewhere below, enjoying the day and the sea.

Wherever the hell it was.

Hang in there, Turk told himself. Just hang in there.

He examined the dials in the cockpit. He still had a decent amount of fuel. The damage to the tail was light, if the controls were to be believed: the plane seemed ever so slightly slow as it responded to the rudder, but not so much that it wouldn’t go where he wanted.

Come on, come on. Let’s get there.

Nothing but green and brown below.

Damn!

And then there was sea, a green-blue sheet spread in front of him.

Free, he was free.

Except: there was the damn MiG, three o’clock in his windscreen, heading due west but pushing onto his wing in what Turk recognized was the start of a sweep that would end with the Phantom in the fat heart of his targeting pipper.

Vahid felt a rush of gravity as he pulled the MiG hard to complete the sweeping intercept. The Phantom, riding straight and true, rose into his screen as he put his nose down. He had the MiG dead on its enemy’s tail. He had his gun selected; he was close to the other plane and wanted the satisfaction of perforating it.

The distinctive tail of the American built plane seemed to droop; Vahid edged his finger onto the trigger as it filled out his target.

Even as he fired, the other plane disappeared. Vahid started to pull up, then realized what the other pilot was doing.

It was almost too late.

Using its control surfaces like speed brakes while it throttled back, the F-4 had dropped below and behind the MiG in an instant. The hunter was now the hunted — Vahid tweaked left and right as a stream of tracers exploded over his right wing. He began a turn, then changed course, hoping to catch the Phantom overshooting him. But whoever was flying the F-4 was very, very good — he not only didn’t bite on the fake turn, but managed to stay behind him long enough to put a few bullets across his right wing. Vahid rolled, trying to loop away, but that was nearly fatal — the F-4 danced downward, drilling two or three more bullets into his left wing and fuselage before passing by.

You underestimated him, One Eye would have said. I didn’t teach you that.

Vahid pulled up, selecting his IR missiles. But the panel indicated they wouldn’t arm. Some of the bullets that struck the plane earlier had disabled the controls or the missiles, or both.

So it was down to guns, one on one.

Vahid leveled off, looking for his opponent.

Turk felt his throat close with the sharp turn. His head pressed in and his heart clutched. It was as if a huge hand had grabbed hold of him and squeezed with all its might.

Don’t do that again. You’ll pass out and crash.

He’d gotten bullets into the other plane. Enough to splash the damn thing, he was sure.

Had he? Where was it?

Head clearing, Turk began a climb. After only a few seconds a tiny shadow passed to his right — cannon fire from the MiG.

He steepened the climb and rolled, surprised to find the MiG practically alongside him.

Within seconds Turk realized they had managed to put themselves into a classically difficult position. They were two fighters locked in a deadly embrace. Neither could afford to accelerate or drop away; doing so would allow the other to slide behind him.

How long could they keep this up? Turk nudged his rudder gently, edging the plane right in hopes that he might be able to let the MiG spurt ahead. But the MiG pilot was too sharp for that — he came with him, rolling his wing around about a quarter turn just as Turk did.

Turk thought of various ways to break off. The best seemed to be to mash the gas, turn tight and get his nose facing the other plane. The MiG would have to turn outside to keep from being thrown in front; Turk would be risking a quick missile shot but he was confident he could get his own shot in first.

The trouble was, he doubted he could stand the roller-coaster force needed to pull that maneuver. Nor could he afford to stay in the climb much longer; the thin oxygen would kill him.

The man flying the other plane had good instincts. Maybe he could use those against him.

Both planes were flying almost straight up, canopy-to-canopy, turning a tight, ascending scissors pattern in the sky. Neither could afford to stray.

Turk had an idea. As he turned his wing to start a twist, he pushed the Phantom closer to the MiG. In an instant, he jerked the nose forward and at the same time fired the gun.

His idea was that it would look to the other pilot as if the Phantom was trying to crash into him. Whether it did or not was impossible to tell, but the maneuver had the desired effect: the MiG spun off to the right.

Turk’s own instincts were to follow. Everything he knew told him that he had the other plane where he wanted him. And certainly he would have if he’d had a flight suit and oxygen.

But he told himself his job now wasn’t to shoot down the MiG. It was to get himself and Stoner home. And so instead he pushed the Phantom back around to the north and accelerated again, sure he was home free.

He’d barely caught his breath when a fresh set of tracers exploded ahead of his right wing. The Iranian didn’t want to quit.

21

Reid raised his hand and gave Breanna a thumbs-up, indicating that the American military consul in Baku had convinced the Azerbaijan air force to scramble its forces. The SEAL command had already released the MC-130 in Baku; it was preparing to take off and fly over the Caspian.

She told herself that Turk was going to make it. Against all odds, he was going to make it. She hadn’t sent him to his death.

22

Turk felt the plane shudder severely as he jinked left and right, barely ducking the fire from the MiG. Between the old metal and whatever damage the Iranian had done to him earlier, the plane was starting to strain.

The MiG and the F-4 were still locked in a death dance, neither able to get an advantage. The MiG slid behind him, but Turk managed to push the Phantom just enough to stay away from his bullets.

Their speed dropped, moving through 220 knots. While the MiG was a nimbler airframe, Turk thought he must have done some damage to it, at least enough to keep it from trying anything too fancy. But its pilot was tenacious, clinging tightly.

Even if the MiG didn’t nail him, the more maneuvers he did, the better the odds that he’d run out of fuel before reaching a safe airport. And parachuting wasn’t an option. He needed to get away quickly.

Turk racked his brain for a way to get the MiG off his back. The only thing he could think of was a low altitude spin and a crash — not a particularly pleasant solution, even if the plane could take the g’s.

Unless it didn’t actually happen.

As another burst of rounds flashed over the canopy, Turk jerked the Phantom’s stick, trying to make the plane look as if it had been hit. He backed off as his plane began to yaw, then pushed in on his left, tipping his wing down and holding his breath.

By now the MiG had stopped firing. He was still back there somewhere, though.

When the blue sea filled his windscreen, Turk held the Phantom’s nose down for a three count. Then he pulled up on the stick, muscling it back as hard as he could while giving the plane throttle.

His head floated in the sudden rush of blood. The Phantom didn’t like the maneuver either, threatening to fall backward in the sky. The control surfaces, confused by the contradictory forces working on them, bit furiously at the air, trying to follow the pilot’s crazed instructions. The engines, suddenly goosed with fuel, roared desperately, pushing to hold the plane in the air despite the heavy hand of gravity.

And there was the MiG, right in front of him.

Turk fired, lying on the trigger even as he fought to get the Phantom stable. He got off a burst and a half, then the goosed engines pushed the Phantom ahead, whipping over the MiG close enough to scorch the paint.

He’d put a dozen bullets into the MiG’s airframe, and this time there was no way they wouldn’t have an effect: Turk saw a bolt of flame in the cockpit mirror.

If he’d been more confident of his fuel, he might have turned around to watch his enemy burn.

Vahid felt the blood draining from his head as the MiG began to disintegrate around him. Victory had been snatched from his hand in an instant. Not just victory — the tables had been completely turned, the pilot in front suddenly behind, the predator now the victim.

He needed to pull the ejection handle. He needed to get out of the plane.

Why? He’d been defeated. He was not the best, and would never be. He couldn’t stand the humiliation.

Could he go home to his father, the war hero, and look him in the eye?

Get out of the aircraft, he heard his old instructor say.

One Eye’s voice screamed at him.

Save yourself. Fly and fight another day.

Vahid’s hand wavered over the handle as his mind battled. He thought of his mother, who would love him no matter what. He saw his father again, as he had known him as a young man, before the injury.

And then it was too late: a fireball erupted, consuming the MiG-29 and Iran’s finest pilot.

Stoner folded his arms, watching out the side of the cockpit as the Phantom leveled off and continued north over the sea. The plane flew steady; bullets no longer coursed over the wings or exploded in the distance. Whatever had been chasing them was gone.

So they were getting out. That was all right, wasn’t it? He didn’t have to kill Turk if he got him home.

The memories poking Stoner earlier had receded. They were like booby-traps in the jungle, waiting to swallow him if he stepped wrong. But he didn’t know how to excise them.

Maybe one of the shrinks back home would.

The mission had been a good one. He liked it tremendously. Everything about it, the sensation of adrenaline in his body, the feeling in his stomach when he ran, the crush of his fist against an enemy.

He hated the enemy. He hated people who wanted to hurt him, or hurt his people.

That was who he was. Whatever else they had done to him, whatever the drugs and biomechanical devices they’d put into him, that part was definitely his.

Clear of the enemy plane, Turk took out the sat phone. He pushed the power button. Nothing happened. The damn thing was dead.

He reached into his pants pocket for Grease’s. He remembered taking it from Grease’s ruck. But he found the GPS, not the sat phone.

He reached into his other pocket, feeling a little desperate. The phone was there.

But it was a cell phone. Grease had the sat phone in his pocket or somewhere else, and he had missed it.

Have to do something else. Don’t fall apart now.

Turk held his course due north for another five minutes before turning westward. He had only the vaguest notion where he was. While he still had a reasonable amount of fuel, he began to prepare a mental checklist of what he would do if Baku didn’t turn up very soon. He would hunt for another airstrip. If he didn’t see one, he could land on a highway — supposedly the Russians had built them long, straight, and wide for just such a contingency.

Better to find Baku. Much, much better.

A small fishing boat bobbed in the distance. The coast was just beyond it.

Another plane was coming down from the north. It looked like a civilian aircraft, an airliner. As it came closer, he saw that it had four engines — an MC-130.

Oh baby, he thought, changing course to meet it.